Plum Island Ecosystem LTER site - Ipswich River Particulate Dataset

The Plum Island Ecosystem (PIE) research site is part of the National
Science Foundation's (NSF) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)
Network. PIE-LTER research is conducted by scientists from the
Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory, the Univeristy
of South Carolina, the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Wells National
Estuarine Research Reserve, and the University of New Hampshire.

The Plum Island Ecosystem was originally called The Plum Island Sound
Comparative Ecosystems Research Program and was part of the The Land
Margin Ecosystems Research Program funded by the National Science
Foundation (NSF) from 1992 to 1996.

The Plum Island Ecosystem Research site investigates the importance to
estuarine ecosystems of organic carbon and organic nitrogen inputs
from watersheds with various land covers and uses. It also asks
whether the interaction of inorganic nutrients with the quantity and
quality of organic carbon and organic nitrogen play an important role
in determining the trophic structure, production and trophic
efficiency in estuaries. To answer these questions, the study:
Measures the quantity of dissolved and particulate organic carbon and
organic nitrogen entering coastal waters from lands; Conducts
experiments to determine the effects of various nutrient and organic
matter inputs and interactions on the flow and recycling of C and N
through pelagic and benthic food webs including higher trophic levels;
Models food chain transformations and the effects of changes in land
use and land cover.

Brief description of data file: ipswpart.txt is a tab-delimited text
file that contains final data for particulate constituents and
physical measurements. Samples were collected monthly beginning Sept.
1993 at the Ipswich Dam.

Geographic location of this data set: On the Ipswich River, just above
the lowermost dam, off Main St. in Ipswich, MA.

The information for this metadata was taken in
part from the Long-Term Ecological Research Program site
See "http://ecosystems.mbl.edu/PIE/".