Annual monitoring of mid-marsh grazing scar at eight GCE LTER sampling sites from 2017 - 2025

Damage by chewing herbivores (grazing scars) was measured at eight sampling sites within the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems (GCE) LTER study area annually in July. Visual surveys were conducted along 8 2m by 10m transects randomly allocated within the mid-marsh zone at each site. Herbivore damage was measured by visually estimating the percent area of leaves missing (grazing scars) to haphazardly chosen leaves along the transect. This survey was conducted as part of the GCE invertebrate monitoring program, and will be performed annually to assess long-term changes in relative species abundances across the GCE study area. In 2024 only 3 sites were sampled due to time and weather constraints.