Elkhorn Slough Invasions

There are 58 known marine invasive species in Elkhorn Slough, including the green crab and the reef building tubeworm Ficopomatus enigmaticus. Graduate student Kimberly Heiman has initiated research on the impact of invasive species on the physical characteristics and community composition of the environments they invade. Kimberly is focusing on the effects of Ficopomatus enigmaticus, recently established in the Elkhorn Slough. F. enigmaticus forms large reefs that can be a meter thick and cover hunderades of square meters. In many areas where it has invaded around the world it provides the one of the only hard complex substrate in estuarine soft-sediment environments. Kimberly plans on investigating environmental and community level changes due to this introduction. One of the questions she wishes to address is whether the establishment of invasive species which form new habitat makes the environment more susceptible to further invasions.