Ecomorphodynamic feedbacks and barrier island response to disturbance: Insights from the Virginia Barrier Islands, Mid-Atlantic Bight, USA

• We examine the overwash “maintainer” feedback on differently disturbed islands.
• Infrequently disturbed: dunes resist overwash, recover with sufficient sand supply.
• Frequently disturbed: maintainer grasses reinforce low topography.
• Shell armoring and critically low elevations also reinforce low topography.
• Maintainer feedback may catalyze shifts to low topography as climate changes.

Ecomorphodynamic feedbacks play an important role in the susceptibility and response of barrier islands to disturbance by overwash. Dune-building grasses, like Ammophila breviligulata, can help to restore areas of high relief after overwash events (i.e., resist disturbance). If overwash recurs before dunes have reestablished, however, overwash-adapted “maintainer” species, like Spartina patens (upright variety), may preferentially survive. Maintainer species help to preserve low, flat topography, thereby increasing the likelihood of future overwash (i.e., reinforcing disturbance). Under frequent disturbance conditions, this positive feedback may lead to overwash persistence. We explore the potential influence of the maintainer feedback on two morphologically distinct barrier islands in the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR), located in the Mid-Atlantic Bight of the U.S. East Coast.Combined topographic and vegetation surveys show that on Hog Island (high-relief, rotating), where dunes dominated by A. breviligulata are ubiquitous, overwash zones are currently limited in extent and related to beach width rather than dominance by S. patens. Historical aerial photos and stratigraphic evidence (ground-penetrating radar, cores) indicate that gradual recovery has taken place following overwash events on Hog Island, except where the beach is narrow and eroding. Conversely, on Metompkin Island (low-relief, transgressing), overwash is widespread and dominated by S. patens, particularly along the rapidly migrating northern half of the island, where shell armoring is also common. Overwash has generally been more prevalent and persistent here than on Hog Island. We present a new conceptual model of the response of barrier islands to disturbance incorporating ecological and physical processes. Our findings suggest that in barrier systems where both dune-building grasses and overwash-adapted maintainer species are common (like the VCR), the maintainer feedback is likely to be a more important dynamic on islands already susceptible to frequent disturbance because of physical factors. The maintainer feedback, therefore, has the potential to accelerate large-scale shifts from dune-dominated to overwash-dominated barrier morphologies as the effects of climate change (increased storm intensity, sea level rise) cause overwash to become more frequent.