Can plants save our beaches? Students team with faculty to dig for answers
- Laurie Dionne Babcock
- Research
- Contributors: James Greco, Photo
6 – minute read
Jeannine Richards might say she’s still getting her research “up and running,” but her work at Florida Gulf Coast University tells a different story.
In just three years, the assistant professor of ecology and environmental studies has launched seven research projects through The Water School — each exploring a bold question: What if the key to saving Florida’s world-famous beaches isn’t sea walls or artificial dunes but plants?
Southwest Florida’s sandy shores — a major magnet for tourists, prized perk for residents and natural habitat for plants and animals — are under threat. Hurricanes increasingly erode the coastline, washing away critical plant life that stabilizes the dunes.
Richards and her students are studying the damage to natural beach vegetation due to catastrophic winds and storm surge, and best practices for post-storm restoration. They’re on a mission to find critical answers to how beaches recover and can bounce back faster with human intervention.
Richards credits the help of more than a dozen undergraduate and graduate students for making the research possible — and says FGCU stands out for offering hands-on research opportunities to students, especially undergrads. Her work also demonstrates FGCU’s strategic goal of championing sustainability and resiliency in Southwest Florida.
FGCU360 zeroed in on five of the research questions she and her students are digging into on Southwest Florida’s shores.
1. Which beach plants trap the most sand and bounce back fastest after storms?
“Plants have the ability to start proto-dunes by trapping sand,” Richards says. She and her students installed fence posts among various plant species to measure how much sand each one captures and how quickly — and how that rate differs among species.
Their fieldwork spans three key sites: Bowditch Point Park on Fort Myers Beach, Lover’s Key State Park in Bonita Springs and Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park near Naples.
Storms that affected Florida’s west coast over the last three years — including Ian, Helene and Milton — have severely damaged local coastal dune systems. Richards and two students tracked the recovery of developed and undeveloped beaches. Their findings showed a steady decline in plant cover and species variety, with some species disappearing entirely while others became more dominant. Among the resilient: railroad vine, seashore dropseed and coastal ground cherry. But dry conditions and renourishment efforts slowed recovery, they found.
The top sand-trappers? Beach elder, a low-growing shrub, and sea oats, a tall perennial grass. The research underscores the need for restoration — especially as powerful hurricanes become more frequent. They expect to publish their findings soon.
2. Can drones and satellites accurately track plant restoration success?
“Drones are a game changer,” Richards says. “We can monitor a much larger area with drones than ground-based observations.”
Helping her with this research is Nathan Hewitt, an environmental science graduate student. Hewitt compares satellite and drone imagery — two different applications of remote sensing — with Richards’ ground-based data to determine how much additional insight remote sensing can provide about the success of dune restoration plantings.
Hewitt spent the summer flying drones over Collier County coastlines where officials have restoration planting projects. Their work will help inform ongoing maintenance.
3. When should we plant beach plants to help them survive storms better?
Since 2017, four major hurricanes have battered Southwest Florida, leaving shorelines stripped and ecosystems struggling to recover. Now, FGCU researchers are testing when to plant for optimal storm resilience.
Two environmental studies majors — seniors Grace Hardmeyer and Rachel Dean — are working on the project with Richards.
The team hopes to determine whether planting native dune species in winter versus spring helps them better withstand future storms. In Collier County, half of the restoration plants they’re studying were planted in December and January and the other half in May and June. Richards and the two students will track how well each group becomes established before the next storm season — or, if no storm hits, how effectively they take root over time.
The results could shape future restoration strategies, helping coastal communities decide not just what to plant, but when.
4. Can saltwater replace chemicals for weed control in beach grass?
In collaboration with Brian Bovard, associate dean and professor in The Water School, Richards explored a sustainable alternative to herbicides: saltwater. Their research asked whether salt-tolerant beach grasses planted along canals can reduce mowing needs — and whether spraying saltwater can suppress weeds without harming the grasses.
Biology student Sequoia Lipman, who worked with Richards on the study, presented their findings at a conference this summer and hopes to publish the results.
“We found that higher concentrations of saltwater — 20 parts per thousand —were effective at killing some weeds,” Richards says, “But we need to test a higher concentration as well as study the implications of high salt content introduced to canals.”
If proven effective, this approach could offer a low-impact, cost-effective way to manage urban landscapes using native plants and natural processes.
5. Can cloned plants help restore ecosystems — without sacrificing plant diversity?
In collaboration with John Griffis, a professor of horticulture in ecology and environmental studies, Richards is studying how cloned plants can be used responsibly in ecosystem restoration. Part-time research technician Reed Gilmore (’23, environmental studies) and biology major Denisse Paez are helping.
Using tissue culture propagation — growing plants in sterile lab conditions — the team is reproducing rare dune species that are difficult to grow from seed. Working with the Naples Botanical Garden and the USDA seed repository, they’re testing propagation methods for two native species that could play a key role in coastal restoration.
“We want genetic diversity in plant populations,” Richards says. They don’t want to plant clones that could make ecosystems more vulnerable to disease or environmental stress. Their research aims to determine how many genetically distinct “mother plants” are needed to maintain healthy diversity while still enabling large-scale restoration.
