MAMMAL COMMUNTIY COMPOSITION AND ACTIVITY ACROSS THE GRADIENT OF MARSH TO FOREST: IMPLICATIONS FOR GHOST FOREST FORMATION

Coastal marshes and forests serve as habitat for a diverse community of mammals. At the same time, coasts have been increasingly subject to salt water intrusion due to climate change and anthropogenic development, leading to the formation of “ghost forests” composed of dying forest vegetation and migrating marsh vegetation. To understand how and if mammals are responding to the formation of ghost forests, we deployed camera traps along the gradient of marsh, ghost forest, and intact coastal forest in the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula in North Carolina, USA, and quantified the changes in species occupancy and rodent activity as a response to metrics of vegetation structure. While most effect measurements were inconclusive, results showed that ghost forests support a mixture of upland and coastal species, and that rodent activity decreases from marsh to forest. Thus, ghost forests may facilitate new species interactions and support a unique community of mammals.