Tech biology students publish research from LUMCON project

Two summers ago, two Louisiana Tech University students were given the opportunity to travel to the marshes of south Louisiana to research the impact of water hyacinth on estuarine species communities through the Louisiana Tech University and LUMCON Coastal Undergraduate Internship program.

The Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) allows college students to gain valuable insights into the marine life in south Louisiana. The students’ research has now been published in the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, where over 15 million researchers around the world can read the article.

Brittany Hutton of Calhoun and Katheryn Steffins of West Monroe were the two Louisiana Tech students who ran the experiments and analyzed the data for the research. All research was supervised by Dr. Jennifer Hill, an Assistant Professor in the College of Applied and Natural Science, and Dr. Guillaume Rieucau, an assistant professor at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

The article addresses the impact of tropical storms or other water runoff events on water hyacinth, an invasive floating freshwater plant that can enter estuarine habitats after storms or other water runoff events and grow along marsh edges, that could possibly impact the estuarine species.

“This research allows us to take a deeper look at how climate change, rising sea levels, and habitat loss all are being affected by the marsh loss that Louisiana’s coast is currently experiencing,” Hill said.

After Hurricane Barry hit the Louisiana Coast in July 2019, Hutton and Steffins spent three weeks studying the brackish water that the storm stirred up. The storms caused the water hyacinth that normally grows in freshwater areas to move down the marsh closer to the Gulf of Mexico. This creates habitat loss for the freshwater species but a new playground for estuarine species.

“After the storm washes the water hyacinth downstream, it hangs out in the saltwater areas and the species that live there are taking advantage of the new resource,” Hill said.

The data collected gives insights into how these huge mats of floating plants are a great resource for estuarine species to feed, find shelter, and hide from predators.