Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 30/09/2026www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...washingtonpost.comOspreys are disappearing along the East Coast. Scientists think they know why.At the center of a widening crisis for one of the nation's great wildlife comebacks is a fish most Americans would hardly recognize. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 23/09/2026One species, but a range of nutrient acquisition traits: read the new paper lead by Kristen Rabbitt, "Nitrogen uptake varies regionally in the salt marsh plant Spartina alterniflora" in @estuariescoasts.bsky.social, @randallhughes.bsky.social @bowenlab.bsky.social: link.springer.com/article/10.1....link.springer.comNitrogen Uptake Varies Regionally in the Salt Marsh Plant Spartina alterniflora - Estuaries and CoastsExcess anthropogenic nitrogen is a key stressor in coastal and marine ecosystems, where it can alter primary production, create eutrophic and anoxic conditions, and affect biodiversity, structure, and... 084
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 17/09/2026North Inlet-Winyah Bay's salt marsh at high tide with an onshore wind 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 08/09/2026A student in my field course pointed out that this Leptuca pugilator (Atlantic sand fiddler crab) has a mark on its carapace that looks like an M. Our first thought was that the mark had been put there by a researcher, but apparently it's typical. It reminds me of Superman's "S"--is this Mudman? 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 02/09/2026This weekend I led my first field trip as a professor @sc.edu at the Baruch Marine Field Lab. We studied a range of intertidal environments, from high to low #saltmarsh and the tidal creek mud. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Curious about the potential of and challenges to coastal #bluecarbon restoration and preservation as a #climate solution? Then read our new paper led by Dr. Melissa Ward in Annual Review of Environment and Resources: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour..., release: www.geog.ox.ac.uk/research/blu....annualreviews.orgBlue Carbon in an Era of Carbon AccountingBlue carbon ecosystems—mangroves, tidal marshes, seagrass meadows, and, increasingly, seaweeds—are being rapidly integrated into climate mitigation frameworks. Yet, despite their prominence in global ... 042
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 17/07/2026When exploring the #rockyintertidal with the @oceangenomelegacy.bsky.social bioblitz last week, I noticed these two lighter-colored rocks, seemingly newly turned over by storms earlier this year--just barnacles and a fresh crop of small brown macroalgae seemingly just having colonized them. 020
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 14/07/2026I returned to our #nitrogen #saltmarsh fertilization plots @pie-lter.bsky.social this summer, and was happy to see that the plants are thriving (July 8). 030
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 09/06/2026Happy #WorldOceansDay from Nahant, Massachusetts! It's a great day to study, to protect, and to celebrate a wellspring of biodiversity, the origin of our every other breath, and a never-ending source of solace and inspiration. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 04/06/2026This article is an ode to a cool creature, under threat. gothamist.com/news/one-of-...gothamist.comOne of New York City’s most common birds could disappear in 10 yearsA New York City Bird Alliance study predicts that black-crowned night herons may disappear from New York City Harbor by 2037. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 04/06/2026Read our new publication lead by @ellewoodsofmyco.bsky.social on the effect of different #nitrogen inputs on the fungus community living inside #saltmarsh plants! Stay tuned for more results on the response of sediment microbial communities, plant growth and carbon uptake, and sediment geochemistry. 022
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 22/04/2026Happy #EarthDay! Remember that we are all sharing a home on this pale blue dot, as Sagan put it "a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." Let's work together to take care of our unique and precious home. (Image NASA/JPL-Caltech.) 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 21/04/2026Boston-area nature lovers, click here to join this weekend! www.inaturalist.org/projects/cit...inaturalist.orgCity Nature Challenge 2026: Boston AreaMassachusetts has a great diversity of life, from the Berkshires to Boston, from downtown to the Cape and Bay. Join the Boston Area City Nature Challenge – a fun worldwide collaborative bioblitz with ... 000
Reposted by Matthew CostaiNaturalist @inaturalist.bsky.social · 16/04/2026Nature is everywhere, even in the busiest cities. From April 24–27, over 100k people around the world will step outside & photograph the wild nature around them for the #CityNatureChallenge — the largest annual community science event. 🧵⤵️ 27530
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 17/04/2026I'm happy to say that I will start as an assistant professor in the @sc.edu's School of the Earth, Ocean, and Environment this summer! My lab at the Belle W. Baruch Institute for Marine and Coastal Sciences will investigate coastal #wetland #ecology, #biogeochemistry, and #climate change adaptation. 020
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 06/04/2026I had the chance to explore my first Eastern Atlantic #saltmarsh in February, thanks to @bluecarbonalex.bsky.social and Bill Austin, who are studying, among others, this marsh on Loch Linnhe in NW Scotland. Of course, a Scottish sediment core was taken with a modified golf hole cutter--nice core! 110
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 03/04/2026A field course in college was how I got my own start studying #mangroves, so it was gratifying to bring @northeasternu.bsky.social Three Seas students into the mangroves in Bocas del Toro, Panama in February, introducing them to collecting data and being naturalists in these wonderful wetlands. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 01/04/2026In the #mangroves in Bocas del Toro, Panama, in February, I was struck again by the epiphyte cover and #biodiversity in an environment with only three tree species. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 29/03/2026www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/o...nytimes.comOpinion | Now Is the Perfect Time to Buy an Electric Vehicle 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 18/02/2026I had the chance to conduct #bluecarbon sediment coring in #Zostera pacifica seagrass beds off the Channel Islands October 2025, working with the Bay Foundation and @scrippsocean.bsky.social. Though the islands are sparse and forbidding, below the surface is a wonderland of green. 110
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 06/02/2026After taking our #Spartina belowground biomass cores at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, we sorted that biomass into three categories. Do different #nitrogen inputs to #saltmarshes affect allocation to long-lived rhizomes, root tissues devoted to resource acquisition, or turnover into the dead biomass pool? 241
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 04/02/2026In Sept. 2025 at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, we took the final samples for the #saltmarsh #nitrogen experiment that has been my focus for the past 3 years. Here I am placing the plot quadrat, pushing and hammering in the corer, and cutting the very last core sample. Now to write the papers.... 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 03/02/2026Happy #WorldWetlandDay! I'm pleased to be back at North Inlet today, remembering a warmer time in Sept. 2025 when we sampled our #nitrogen #saltmarsh experimental plots (you can see the boosted plant height from the fertilizer) for the last time, including pulling these belowground biomass cores. 041
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 30/01/2026In August 2025 I had the chance to visit the new field station at Kendall-Frost Marsh, a UC Natural Reserve @ucsandiego.bsky.social. The new classroom and visiting scientist facilities enhanced the experience of studying this wonderful #wetland and sharing it with @scrippsocean.bsky.social students. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 28/01/2026How do we get #saltmarsh cores? In our #nitrogen fertilization experimental plots @pie-lter.bsky.social,... 100
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 26/01/2026How changeable is a New England summer! Doing fieldwork @pie-lter.bsky.social in July 2025, one day it's 90° and sunny, the next the stalwart team is shivering in the rain, some opting to wear PFDs for extra insulation. Needless to say, we cut our #saltmarsh biomass measurements short that day. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026In July 2025, we had a couple of former undergrad interns, already on their way to grad school, come out of retirement to help wrap up our #saltmarsh experiment @pie-lter.bsky.social. I'm glad we haven't scared them away from fieldwork! Thank you to all the students who have helped over the years. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 21/01/2026Returning July 28, 2025 to sample our #saltmarsh fertilization experiment @pie-lter.bsky.social for the last time, it certainly seemed that the #nitrogen added over time increased the size of the plants in the plots. See also our a great team of students (shown heading back after a hard day's work). 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 19/01/2026How Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/c...nytimes.comHow Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 09/01/2026Observing the #saltmarsh creek bank @pie-lter.bsky.social (April 2025), you can see how the marsh platform has built up peat from the rhizomes of old Spartina alterniflora plants, atop older sediment layers, and in places crumbling away into the creek, as wind, tides, and ice erode the edges. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 05/01/2026To study #saltmarsh response to nitrogen inputs @pie-lter.bsky.social, we've tracked marsh accretion, which may be affected by changes in root growth. Here I am placing a quadrat on a 1 m2 plot and holding this staff, which is read by a laser elevation system, on the marsh surface (April 2025). 020
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 23/12/2025When you visit the #saltmarsh @pie-lter.bsky.social in spring, you can see large slabs of #sediment on the marsh platform, which have been deposited there over the winter by ice rafting: ice freezing to the mudflat, and the frozen mud being carried around by winds and tides onto the marsh (April 4). 011
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 22/12/2025It's always interesting to see the salt marsh plants that sprout first in the spring, April 4, @pie-lter.bsky.social. 100
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 25/11/2025Visiting the #mangroves in Santa Catalina on the Pacific Coast of Panama in March 2025, I was struck by high levels of localized leaf #herbivory. Does anyone know what organism(s) are responsible? 020
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 17/11/2025Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/o...nytimes.comOpinion | I’m a Psychoanalyst. This Is What Technology Is Doing to Us. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 31/10/2025How do you get all the dried biomass from 36 #saltmarsh plant mesocosms home from a field site hundreds of miles away (along with with frozen water samples and sediment)? A lot of drying, sorting into paper bags, packing into duffels and coolers, and schlepping through airports..., but they made it! 030
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 29/10/2025Check out the amazing density of snails on the Spartina alterniflora #saltmarsh plants at North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR. (I think that they are Littoraria irrorata, but chime in if you have a better id!) 030
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 27/10/2025In November 2024, after two growing seasons of treatments, you can really see the effect of #nitrogen fertilization in our field plots at North Inlet-Winyah Bay, SC! We are testing the effect of ammonium vs. nitrate inputs on #saltmarsh plant and microbe responses. 251
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 27/10/2025www.wgbh.org/news/local/2...wgbh.orgEPA employee fired after signing letter of dissent opposing deregulationEPA engineer Lane To shares their story with Craig LeMoult after being fired for signing a letter critical of agency deregulation under the Trump administration. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 16/10/2025#Saltmarshes bury a lot of #carbon in place, but also excess, dead Spartina plant matter is carried away by wind and tides and can accumulate elsewhere, episodically loading sites like this marsh-upland edge with marsh wrack (North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR, September 2024). 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 15/10/2025In summer 2024 we collected the Spartina alterniflora plants and sediment from the marsh organs we used in our field experiment on the effects of different forms of nitrogen fertilization on #saltmarsh #carbon and #nitrogen cycling, @pie-lter.bsky.social and at North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR. 130
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 10/10/2025We got a fascinating tour of the oyster-rearing process right in the Rowley River by our neighbors at the Great Marsh Shellfish Co. ( www.thegreatmarshshellfishco.com ) in September 2024 @pie-lter.bsky.social. They were the tastiest things I've ever eaten pulled right out out of a salt marsh! 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 08/10/2025Check out the incredible density of fiddler crabs in the #saltmarsh at North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Reserve, where colleagues and I were measuring nitrogen cycling in June 2024. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Fallen asleep on the job? Dropped a contact lens? No, in fact estimating aboveground biomass in the #saltmarsh by measuring every shoot in a 25 cm x 25 cm plot means hours with your face in the grass (while perched precariously on a boardwalk plank or milk crate platform) @pie-lter.bsky.social. 010
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 03/10/2025Since 2023, we (@bowenlab.bsky.social, @randallhughes.bsky.social) have been testing how nitrogen inputs affect #saltmarsh plants, microbes, and carbon and nitrogen cycling, @pie-lter.bsky.social in Massachusetts and at North Inlet Winyah Bay NERR in South Carolina. 122
Reposted by Matthew CostaCOMPASS @compassscicomm.bsky.social · 25/09/2025During National Estuaries Week, we're reflecting on our blue carbon work & the role of coastal ecosystems in storing carbon. Check out our blog with Dr. Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social: buff.ly/8qHDj5A #NationalEstuariesWeek #CommunicationSkills #SciComm #SciPol #StrategicMessaging 022
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 28/08/2025When our measurements in the #saltmarsh @pie-lter.bsky.social involve hanging out on the boardwalk over high tide, we get to see a whole other side of the environment, from the marsh organs being overtopped by the tide to egrets (and the midges...) waiting at the edge of the water to feed. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 18/08/2025How do we measure #denitrification in our #saltmarsh ammonium and nitrate treatment plots at @pie-lter.bsky.social? Anne Giblin and Jane Tucker from @mblscience.bsky.social bring the lab into the field for this in situ "push-pull" denitrification measurement. 152
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 16/08/2025In April 2024, 1 year after planting these Spartina alterniflora in the #saltmarsh organs at North Inlet, they were going strong! We simulated different marsh elevations in three rows of pipes, and randomly assigned each plant a #nitrogen treatment. Stephanie and Karen survey the plants' progress. 000
Matthew Costa @mangrovematt.bsky.social · 12/08/2025gothamist.com/news/phd-stu...gothamist.comPhD student paddles 315 miles down Hudson River to show it’s cleaner than many thinkJohn Henkelman spent a month testing the river’s health. 000