Like big bones planted within the earth, clusters of tree trunks, stripped clear of bark, are showing alongside the Chesapeake Bay on the USA’ mid-Atlantic coast. They’re ghost forests: the haunting stays of what have been as soon as stands of cedar and pine. For the reason that late nineteenth century, an ever-widening swath of those bushes have died alongside the shore. And so they received’t be rising again.
These arboreal graveyards are displaying up in locations the place the land slopes gently into the ocean and the place salty water more and more encroaches. Alongside the USA’ East Coast, in pockets of the West Coast, and elsewhere, saltier soils have killed lots of of 1000’s of acres of bushes, forsaking woody skeletons sometimes surrounded by marsh.
What occurs subsequent? That relies upon. As these useless forests transition, some will grow to be marshes that keep important ecosystem providers, resembling buffering in opposition to storms and storing carbon. Others could grow to be dwelling to invasive crops or assist no vegetation in any respect—and the ecosystem providers will likely be misplaced. Researchers are working to know how this rising shift towards marshes and ghost forests will, on stability, have an effect on coastal ecosystems.
Lots of the ghost forests are a consequence of sea degree rise, says coastal ecologist Keryn Gedan of George Washington College in Washington, DC, coauthor of an article on the salinization of coastal ecosystems within the 2025 Annual Evaluate of Marine Science. Rising sea ranges can carry extra intense storm surges that flood saltwater excessive of soil. Drought and sea degree rise can shift the groundwater desk alongside the coast, permitting saltwater to journey farther inland, beneath the forest flooring. Bushes, disadvantaged of contemporary water, are burdened as salt accumulates.
But the transition from residing forest to marsh isn’t essentially a tragedy, Gedan says. Marshes are necessary options of coastal ecosystems, too. And the shift from forest to marsh has occurred all through durations of sea degree rise up to now, says Marcelo Ardón, an ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist at North Carolina State College in Raleigh.
“You’ll consider these forests and marshes type of dancing collectively up and down the coast,” he says.
Marshes present many ecosystem advantages. They’re habitats for birds and crustaceans, resembling salt marsh sparrows, marsh wrens, crabs, and mussels. They’re additionally a distinct segment for native salt-tolerant crops, like rushes and sure grasses, which offer meals and shelter for animals.
