Featured Projects
Restoration of Windswept Bog, a retired cranberry Bog, to functional wetland status will provide large scale ecological benefits. This project provides opportunities for research, education, and deeper understanding of wetland and upland habitat restoration at former cranberry bog sites. Phase 1 of construction for this project took place in January-March 2024. Phase 2 (the final phase) began in November 2024 and will wrap up by the end of March 2025.
This group of research projects investigates how key soil features and ecosystem functions change over time in sites that are developing under different management scenarios. Specifically, we compare the development of soil properties and functions associated with nitrogen cycling and greenhouse gas flux across sites that fall along a restoration trajectory across active cranberry farms, young retired farms, old retired farms, flooded former farms, ecologically restored former farms, and natural reference wetlands with no history of cranberry farming. Results of this work inform not only our understanding of how ecosystems develop and function over time under different hydrologic and management scenarios, but also informs the practice of restoration.
Coastal ecosystems and communities are under direct threat from climate
change and sea level rise. Meanwhile, low-lying cranberry farmland with no viable economic future
presents an opportunity to create more resilient and adaptable coastlines. Massachusetts has the means to leverage this opportunity, with rich expertise and experience in ecological restoration for these unique
sites, and a thriving network of partners to protect and manage public open space. The first goal of this project is to protect and restore coastal wetland habitats within the grant period - and invite future inland marsh migration on retired low-lying cranberry farmland. This project also will provide valuable co-benefits less common in habitat restoration projects.