Salt marshes exist at the interface between land and sea and provide multiple valuable ecosystems services through their properties and processes. Salt marshes are distributed across many coasts globally from the arctic and sub-arctic regions to the tropics. Despite their global distribution and importance, much of the research on them and many of their core ecological paradigms have been developed in a relatively small number of locations. To appropriately incorporate salt marshes into nature-based solutions and to make meaningful and appropriate comparisons between salt marshes, there is a pressing need to develop a globally relevant and multi-scale typology. This work places specific salt marshes into suitable global and coastal contexts, while also providing information for both inter- and intra-system dynamics at the meso- and micro-scale. By developing this typology that crosses multiple scales, studies can select suitable locations and compare and contrast their findings, thus allowing for a more mechanistic understanding of underlying dynamics.

Dr. Erik Yando is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at Old Dominion University, where he leads the Coastal Plant and Ecotone Ecology Lab. His research is focused on understanding plant-soil interactions, aboveground-belowground linkages, and heterogeneity of properties and processes within and between adjacent coastal and wetland systems. His work spans from basic ecology to applied science and focuses on how using areas of transition can inform our understanding of coastal and wetland systems and linking multiple portions of the coastal landscape mosaic. He has experience working in a variety of coastal and wetland systems in the southeastern and northeastern US, as well as southeast Asia, including salt marshes, seagrasses, mangroves, mudflats, bottomland hardwoods, freshwater marshes, and cypress swamps.

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