The Odum/Teal Boardwalk is the light line extending into the
smooth-cordgrass (
Spartina alterniflora) marsh
(toward the left) from the mainland. This marsh walk has been in
place since Gene Odum and John Teal did their very famous work at
the Marine Institute in the 1950s-1960s. It is still the site of
several research projects, including my current examination of
seasonal/interannual patterns of change in saltmarsh-fungal living
standing crop and fungal productivity, and Steve Pennings' study of
plant competition. The Main Laboratory Building is the big, red-
roofed structure at the top; it was converted from R. J. Reynolds'
fancy cattle barn in the 1950s. You can just make out part of the
white concrete trellis that borders the still-functional tennis
court that Howard Coffin built in 1925, just to the right and up
from the mainland end of the Boardwalk. The waterway is Southend
Creek, which has its mouth near the lighthouse on Doboy Sound.
This picture was taken about 2 years after my misting-and-fertilization
project was completed -- you can still, perhaps, just make out the
fertilized marshgrass plots as darker-green rectangles. See Kneib RT,
1996, The University of Georgia Marine Institute, Georgia J Sci 54:81-89;
Newell SY, Arsuffi TL, Palm LA, 1996, Misting and nitrogen
fertilization of shoots of a saltmarsh grass: effects upon fungal
decay of leaf blades, Oecologia 108:495-502; Newell SY, 2001,
Multiyear patterns of fungal biomass dynamics and productivity within
naturally decaying smooth cordgrass shoots, Limnology & Oceanography
46:573-583.