A large, seasonal fly with a particularly painful bite is out and about again for the summer in Massachusetts.

As salt-tolerant plants — smooth cordgrass, saltmarsh hay, saltgrass, black rush — begin to grow, their dense stems and roots trap more sediment, and the marsh builds more rapidly, up and out.

But salt marshes, which are coastal wetlands flooded and drained by salt water from the tides, can shield buildings and homes. “When Hurricane Sandy hit, if we didn’t have salt marshes there, a lot of ...

The degraded salt marsh at Joppa Flats in Newburyport in May 2022. (Courtesy Stephen Young) "I can't tell you a marsh that's not been impacted by some sort of legacy of human ditching or ...

Salt marshes are 10 times more effective at storing carbon than tropical forests, and, ... the high marsh, less so. Most plants, animals and insects are adapted to thrive in one area or the other.

Lake Natron is a soda lake in northern Tanzania with a volcanic geology that maintains the water's pH around 10.5, which is almost as caustic as ammonia. Some life-forms thrive there nevertheless.

They are also a niche for native salt-tolerant plants, like rushes and certain grasses, which provide food and shelter for animals. Marshes can also store hefty amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.

Under good conditions, sediments deposited on the marsh floor allow it to rise in elevation, but Maher’s investigations since 2008 in salt marshes across Long Island show seas are rising too ...

Over the years, the construction industry has used salt hay for insulation, livestock farmers use it for animal bedding, and berry growers mulch with it, since it is naturally free of weed seeds.

Low Salt Marsh Habitats Release More Carbon in Response to Warming, a New Study Finds This complicates their role as carbon sinks as temperatures, ... plus animal behavior and plant growth.

Yes, mosquitoes are considered animals. They belong to the class insecta, within the phylum Arthropoda. Mosquitoes are known ...

The mass of plants that comprise a salt marsh go through a life cycle, much as do the animals that live in it. That includes dying off. The grasses turn brown and decay over the winter.