About Chris Pickerell, Marine Program Director, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County
Chris Pickerell has worked for CCE of Suffolk County for 33 years and has served as the Director of the Marine Program for the last ten. Born and raised on Long Island, he has worked on and around the water his entire life. The focus of his professional career has been the management and restoration of coastal plant communities including seagrass meadows and salt marshes, and he has developed several innovative planting methods for both. His current work focuses on the integration of hatchery produced ribbed mussels into nursery reared marsh grasses to enhance salt marsh restoration.
8:45 AM | Designing for the Coast: New Strategies for Salt Marsh Habitat Restoration
Methods for restoring salt marshes on the east coast of the US have necessarily focused on planting the dominant ecosystem engineer, Smooth cordgrass (Sporobolus alterniflorus). While this approach has proven mostly successful, recent advances in our understanding of intra and interspecific facilitation within and between dominant marsh species, including plants and bivalves, have hinted at new opportunities to refine our approach. This presentation will explore various innovative planting methods being tested including the incorporation of hatchery reared mussels to enhance marsh grass plantings. Attendees will gain insight into these new approaches that promise to revolutionize coastal habitat restoration.