Draft:Linda Deegan

Linda Ann Deegan is an estuarine and arctic ecologist with expertise in freshwater inputs, food web interactions, eutrophication, estuaries, and coastal processes. Her research combines ecosystem perspectives, energy flows, and community dynamics to tackle issues such as the effects of habitat degradation on fish communities, the importance of fish in exporting nutrients and carbon in estuaries, and the response of upper trophic levels to increased nutrient trends in arctic landscapes.

Education
Deegan earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts in 1976 where she graduated Cum laude with Departmental Honors. Her Honors Thesis Title: “The growth, production, and metabolism of the mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) in a New England saltmarsh.”, based on work she conducted in the Plum Island estuary. Shortly thereafter, she earned her master’s degree in Zoology from the University of New Hampshire in 1979 with her thesis project focusing on, “The growth and survivorship of Coho salmon in Great Bay, New Hampshire.” She then went on to earn her Ph.D. in Marine Sciences from Louisiana State University in 1985, and minoring in statistics. Her dissertation focused on, “The population ecology and nutrient cycling of gulf menhaden in Fourleague Bay, Louisiana.”

Career and research
Linda Deegan began her career in 1985 as an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and later become an Adjunct Professor in 1989 in the Department of Environmental Conservation. In 1989, she joined the Ecosystem Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, first as an Assistant Scientist and now a Senior Scientist as of 2002. From 2004 to the present day, she has been a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Geology at Brown University, and from 2009 to the present day, she has been the Director of the Comparative Analysis of Marine Ecosystem Organization (CAMEO), a joint NSF and NOAA program. In 2016, Deegan joined the Woodwell Climate Research Center as Senior Scientist and has conducted research on a wide range of ecological topics, including the effects of nutrient enrichment on salt marsh ecosystems, the impact of climate change on Arctic tundra ecosystems, and the role of wetlands in regulating carbon and nitrogen cycling. She has been involved in two long-term projects: The Woodwell Climate Research Center’s TIDE Project, and the Coonamessett River Trust Restoring a River Project.

The TIDE Project
The TIDE project is a long-term ecological study that uses an ecosystem-level approach to understand the effects of eutrophication and altered food webs on salt marsh ecosystems in the Plum Island Estuary, Massachusetts. This project aims to understand the long-term effects of moderate increases in nutrients and changes in species on the productivity, food webs, and physical structure of salt marshes. Deegan has served as project director since 1996. The project is the only coastal ecosystem-scale nutrient addition experiment in the world.

The project adds chemical fertilizers to regions of the marsh in order to examine the impact on the ecosystem. Deegan's work has shown the excessive nutrient levels cause changes in the fish and grasses.

In 2012, Deegan led the publication in Nature documenting the changes in the estuary that resulted from the addition of nutrients.

Restoring a River Project
The Coonamessett River Trust Restoring a River Project focuses on the restoration of rivers to establish healthier ecosystems that support fish, other aquatic organisms, and wildlife. The restoration began in 2007 with phase 1(Dexter’s Mill Crossing to Middle Dam) completed in 2018.

Deegan's work at Toolik Lake, Alaska has examined the impact of droughts on fish, the impact of increasing water temperature on Arctic grayling fish, and thermokarst which are regions where permafrost has collapsed due to melting.

Selected research publications

 * Babitch, J.W., Nelson, J.A., Deegan, L.A. et al. Resolving Estuarine Nitrogen Use by Phytoplankton Communities Using a Whole Ecosystem Tracer Approach. Estuaries and Coasts 44, 1883–1898 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-021-00905-6
 * Coe MT, Brando PM, Deegan LA, Macedo MN, Neill C, Silvério DV. The Forests of the Amazon and Cerrado Moderate Regional Climate and Are the Key to the Future. Tropical Conservation Science. 2017;10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940082917720671
 * Crosby, S.C., Angermeyer, A., Adler, J.M. et al. Spartina alterniflora Biomass Allocation and Temperature: Implications for Salt Marsh Persistence with Sea-Level Rise. Estuaries and Coasts 40, 213–223 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-016-0142-9
 * Jankowski, K. J., Deegan, L. A., Neill, C., Sullivan, H. L., Ilha, P., Maracahipes-Santos, L., . . . Macedo, M. N. (2021). Land use change influences ecosystem function in headwater streams of the lowland amazon basin. Water, 13(12), 1667. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13121667
 * Nelson, J.A., Johnson, D.S., Deegan, L.A. et al. Feedbacks Between Nutrient Enrichment and Geomorphology Alter Bottom-Up Control on Food Webs. Ecosystems 22, 229–242 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-018-0265-x
 * Deegan, L. A., Johnson, D. S., Warren, R. S., Peterson, B. J., Fleeger, J. W., Fagherazzi, S., & Wollheim, W. M. (2012). Coastal eutrophication as a driver of salt marsh loss. Nature, 490(7420), 388-392. doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11533

Awards and honors

 * Murray F. Buell Award Finalist by the Ecological Society of America (1984)