Dr. Paul Jivoff

Through a $17,900 grant from the Barnegat Bay National Estuary Program (BBNEP), Dr. Paul Jivoff, assistant professor of biology at Rider University, will advance his study on the effect bulkheads have on Barnegat Bay’s ecology by comparing natural versus bulkheaded shorelines throughout the bay this summer.

Jivoff and two Rider undergraduate marine science students began the study during the summer of 2005 by comparing sediment characteristics, depth profiles, species diversity and abundance of fish, crabs and shrimp in front of bulkheads versus marshes and beaches in the Little Egg Harbor area of Barnegat Bay.

This summer he and two new Rider undergraduates will focus more on the northern parts of the bay while continuing to take samples in the southern portion.

“There are considerably more bulkheads to the north,” Jivoff said, “so it will be possible to compare natural habitats that are surrounded by bulkheads.”

In an article he wrote for the fall 2006 issue of “The Barnegat Bay Beat,” a publication of the BBNEP, he noted that 36 percent of the natural shoreline in the bay consists of bulkheads, which he said represents a significant loss of natural habitat, particularly marsh and natural shoreline beach.

“Most of the previous research on the effects of bulkheads has been done along the West Coast. We have very little information on how bulkheads have influenced aquatic habitats in New Jersey estuaries,” he said about why he undertook the Barnegat Bay study.

Jivoff wrote that in 2005, his team found that there were fewer species of fish, crabs and shrimp at bulkheads as compared with natural shorelines. They captured 28 species at the beaches, 26 species at the marshes and only 18 at the bulkheads. “The juveniles of several commercially or recreationally important species such as blue crabs, spot, bluefish and weakfish completely avoided the bulkheads, he said.

“We found that sediment composition differed,” he added. “Bulkheads contained more large-sized sediment. This is consistent with more turbulent water flow in front of bulkheads as compared to natural shorelines. Bulkheads also lacked shallow water (less than three feet deep).”

Beaches and marshes are dominated by shallow water suggesting that natural shorelines offer better refuge habitats for small organisms, he said. The sediment is finer and better for a variety of species that bury or eat buried prey such as crabs. Usually finer sediment contains more nutrients and more abundant food sources.

 

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