Louisiana Deltaic Estuaries MBON

The Louisiana Deltaic Estuaries MBON (LA MBON) — Sea Level Rise Sentinels — is the first U.S. MBON project sited in an estuarine system. Coastal Louisiana’s highly productive and diverse estuaries make it a globally significant deltaic coast and a vital sea-level-rise sentinel: it experiences some of the highest rates of coastal land loss in the world, mirroring the range of responses that estuaries elsewhere may face as seas continue to rise.

Led by Cassandra Glaspie at Louisiana State University and established in 2023, the project collates and synthesizes data from existing monitoring programs to make them more accessible and comparable, and works toward efficient methods for observing estuarine biodiversity. It pairs traditional sampling — benthic cores and taxonomic identification of macrofauna — with emerging approaches including environmental DNA (eDNA), remote sensing, and passive acoustics, validating the new methods against the traditional ones. Seasonal sampling spans long-term monitoring locations in Barataria Bay, Terrebonne Bay, and Atchafalaya Bay.

LA MBON publishes its biodiversity observations through the MBON data portal and OBIS, including benthic core macrofauna and oyster-reef associated biodiversity datasets.