Alexandra Bijak
William & Mary, VA·Ecology & Evolution
Seagrass meadows store carbon, protect shorelines and help buffer coastal waters against ocean acidification. In many regions, long-lived, structurally complex seagrasses are being replaced by faster-growing, short-lived "weedy" species.
- Fields
Ecology & Evolution
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
seagrass
bivalves
shellfish
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2026
What they work on
- Test how the strength and direction of seagrass-bivalve interactions change with seagrass species and bivalve type, by adding bivalves to meadows dominated by early-successional versus climax seagrasses and measuring growth of both.
- Measure how seagrass-bivalve combinations affect organic carbon storage in surface sediments and decomposition rates in field bivalve-addition experiments.
- Determine how seagrass-bivalve interactions modify seawater carbonate chemistry, including dissolved inorganic carbon, total alkalinity and pH, to identify combinations that best buffer local acidification.
More about the research
At the same time, clams, mussels and other bivalves that live in seagrass beds are declining. This project asks how these combined changes alter the way coastal ecosystems function, especially their ability to store carbon and regulate the chemistry of seawater.
Why it matters
As climate change and other human pressures worsen coastal acidification and reshape seagrass communities, coastal managers need to know which species combinations keep meadows working. Results could guide conservation and restoration of seagrasses and bivalves toward combinations that store more carbon and buffer pH for shellfish and other pH-sensitive organisms. They may also be scaled up to improve global estimates of coastal carbon storage.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Tyler Cyronak
Georgia Southern University, GA·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify how much total alkalinity flows out of sediments in two contrasting seagrass ecosystems, using field and laboratory chamber incubations and pore water analyses.
Pincelli Hull
Yale University, CT·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify how changes in ocean circulation alone alter marine carbon storage in a warm Pliocene ocean, using targeted Community Earth System Model (CESM) experiments.
Catherine Clark
Western Washington University, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure the composition and amount of dissolved organic matter (DOM) exported from a salt marsh into the Padilla Bay estuary across tidal cycles and seasons, using spectroscopy, dissolved organic carbon and water-flow measurements.
The school
William & Mary: 11 labs on PI Pages, $95M a year on research, 67 research doctorates a year.
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