The Skidaway River adjacent to the UGA Skidaway Institute campus

In estuaries of the South Atlantic Bight, one of the longest and most extensive datasets of plankton and bacteria biomass and composition is from the Skidaway River (31°59’ N, 81°01’ W) and the associated Wassaw Sound estuarine system in Georgia. Wassaw Sound is a tidally dominated, bar-built estuary surrounded by extensive stands of salt marsh. Although pristine compared to industrially impacted waterways such as the Savannah River and Charleston Harbor, residential development and population density around the Wassaw Sound system have been increasing rapidly.

Since 1986 the Skidaway River Monitoring Program (SRiMP) has maintained a time series observation dataset of hydrography, nutrients, phytoplankton, heterotrophic microbial communities, mesozooplankton, representative gelatinous nekton, and dissolved oxygen (Table 1) as well as meterological data.

SRiMP monitoring locations

Water samples have been collected approximately weekly from the main dock of the Skidaway River Estuary at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. The start of the program was coincident with the rapid development of Skidaway Island, Georiga USA that has transformed a marsh and maritime forest covered ancient barrier island to an island dominated by a residential luxury golf course community. Population growth in the 1980’s was as high as 25% annually, but has since declined to <3% annually as island development has neared completion. Evidence from the SRiMP study support the hypothesis of causative linkages between human population growth, nutrient loading, and ecosystem alteration.

Table 1 shows the of sampling parameters and frequency of the SRiMP data set.

Table1 SRiMP – Sampling Parameters and Frequency
Parameter	Frequency of Sampling	Data From
1Rainfall	Continuous	1986
1Tidal Stage	Continuous	1986
1Meterological	Continuous	1986
Temperature	Weekly	1986
Salinity	Weekly	1986
Dissolved Oxygen	Weekly	1986
Dissolved Nutrients	Weekly	1986
POC and PON	Weekly	1986
Chlorophyll-a	Weekly	1986
Bacterial Biomass	Weekly	1986
Plankton Community Structure	4 times/yr	1986
Auto/hetero-nano/microplankton	Weekly	1986
Diatom Biomass	Weekly	1986
Acartia spp.	Weekly	1986
Viral Biomass	Weekly	1998
Fecal Indicators	Weekly	1999
Gelatinous Zooplankton	Weekly	2007
pH	Weekly	2011
Conductivity	Weekly	2011
Turbidity	Weekly	2011
Secchi Depth	Weekly	2011
DIC – Stable Isotopes	Weekly	2011
POC, PON Stable Isotopes	Weekly	2012
DOC, TDN	Weekly	2012
Live Plankton	Weekly	2012
Resipration (BOD)	Bi-weekly	2012
Picoplankton	Monthly	2012
1Continuously measured since 2007

SRiMP Dataset
SRiMP Publications

 For additional information, contact Marc Frischer.