Coastal wetlands may be subjected to numerous biotic and abiotic stressors from natural and anthropogenic forces in the landscape. The influx of nutrients, inorganic compounds and xenobiotics are suspected of degrading the belowground biomass of coastal macrophytes. Spartina patens acts as an ecosystem engineer for lower salinity coastal marshes and its biomechanical properties are vital to the stability and resilience of coastal wetlands. S.patens was exposed to one natural (flooding) and two anthropogenic stressors (atrazine and nutrient addition) in a greenhouse experiment to test the hypothesis that these three stressors reduce the tensile root strength of S. patens. A one-way Welch’s analysis of variance revealed that the tensile root strength S. patens significantly declined after exposure to two flood duration regimes, three levels of atrazine exposure, and two levels of nutrient addition that consisted of nitrogen-phosphorus combinations. A one-way ANOVA of tensile root strength with an atrazine-flood duration-nutrient addition combination treatment as the main effect resulted in a 52 to 63% loss in tensile strength, while the individual atrazine, flooding, and nutrient treatments produced 40, 39, and 37% losses in tensile root strength, respectively. These results indicate that the effects of multiple natural and/or anthropogenic stressors may degrade the tensile root strength of S. patens, which could facilitate coastal erosion and subsequent collapse of the wetland ecosystem.

沿海湿地可能会受到景观中自然和人为力量的众多生物和非生物胁迫。怀疑养分，无机化合物和异种生物的涌入会降解沿海大型植物的地下生物量。Spartina patens是盐度较低的沿海沼泽的生态系统工程师，其生物力学特性对沿海湿地的稳定性和复原力至关重要。在温室试验中，将S.patens暴露于一种天然（淹水）和两种人为胁迫源（阿特拉津和添加营养素）中，以测试这三种胁迫源降低S. patens拉伸根强度的假设。单向Welch方差分析表明，拉伸根强度暴露于两种洪水持续时间制度，三种水平的azine去津暴露量和两种水平的氮磷组合养分添加后，沙门氏菌显着下降。以阿特拉津注水持续时间-营养添加组合治疗为主要效果的单向拉伸方根强度方差分析导致拉伸强度损失52％至63％，而单独的阿特拉津，淹没和营养处理产生40，39 ，根部抗拉强度分别降低37％。这些结果表明，多种自然和/或人为胁迫源的作用可能会降低沙门氏菌的拉伸根系强度，这可能会促进海岸侵蚀和随后湿地生态系统的崩溃。