Don't Tread on Me!

Dunes to Beach-Goers: Keep Off!  

Island Beach State Park - When Bianca Reo spent the last 11 Mondays at Island Beach State Park walking up and down the beachfront, measuring dunes, and observing beach-goers’ behaviors, she found something startling.

“Even though people know they should not walk on the dunes, they are,” said the 23-year-old Villanova University graduate student who received a $1,500 grant donated by the Friends of island Beach State Park. The grant was administered through the Save Barnegat Bay Student Grant Program.

Reo, a Parsippany resident who graduated in 2012 with a bachelors of science degree in biology from Princeton University, photographed holes people dug in the sand to plop a sand chair and footprints heading up to the top of the dunes.

And when she encountered an errant beachgoer disturbing the dunes, she wasn’t shy about speaking up and educating them.

 “I found people trampling everything, even the fences, and climbing and walking straight up the dunes. One woman even dug a hole in the dune to put her chair in,” she said. Reo was among the student grant recipients presenting their research Aug. 11 to Save Barnegat Bay and partner organizations at Tri-Boro First Aid Squad in Seaside Park.

She suggested additional signage to bridge the disconnect, such as signs saying “Don’t Tread on Me” and “Keep Off the Dunes.” She added that she didn’t observe many signs alerting people to the consequences of trampling the dunes.

I have to say I agree with Reo about the disconnect since I observed people who came out to plant dune grass during 17 planting sessions at the park later walking up those same dunes. As I was leaving a planting event one day, I even saw a mother, daughter and grandchild walking the child up a dune near the parking lot of Ocean Bathing Area #1 to take a photo of the child on the dune. I drove by, circled back and educated them about why they needed to stay off the fragile dune system.

Park Manager Ray Bukowski suggested that maybe the nonprofit Friends of Island Beach State Park could help by providing the additional signage that Reo has suggested.

Reo also studied “Dynamics of primary dunes following a major stochastic event,” namely, superstorm Sandy. She categorized dunes as historic dunes, which were only eroded following Sandy, or restoring dunes, which were completely blown out.

She said she took weekly measurements of accretion, or sand buildup, at restoring dunes, using a GPS, flags to mark the location, a rangefinder and clinometers. She added that she then calculated the height using trigonometry calculations. The same data was collected at historic dunes, but only four times. She also took core samples from on top of historic dune crests and next to restoring dune fences and found differences in the composition of the sand.

Reo also studied the two dominant types of plant species on the primary dunes: native American Beach Grass and non-native invasive Asiatic Sand Sedge Grass, which “reduces the diversity, density, and evenness of other plants in stands where it dominates.” Much of her research on the invasive sedge grass was based on research that Dr. Louise Wootton, professor of biology at Georgian Court University, has done at Island Beach State Park.

The graduate student said she hopes to continue her research at Island Beach by studying and measuring the dunes during the winter and fall. Reo, who will receive her master of science degree in biology May 2014, said she also has plans to do a greenhouse study of why American Beach Grass isn’t hardier than Asiatic Sand Sedge as part of her graduate research at Villanova.

The other 2013 Barnegat Bay Student Grant Recipients were Ryan Christiansen, a MATES graduate who is a student at Florida Tech, Meredith Foor, a MATES graduate who is a student at Steven Institute of Technology, Juliet Taylor, a MATES graduate who is a student at the University of North Carolina. They studied “Source tracking along Island Beach State Park and Seaside Park;” Ryan Sullivan, a student at the University of North Carolina, who did a study of “Trace metal analysis and subaqueous soil survey of the Barnegat Bay,” and Annalee Tweitmann, a student at Cornell University, who did a study “Assessing the reproductive output of northern diamondback terrapins at North Sedge Island after a post-tropical cyclone.”