Sand dune plants compose a unique habitat that is rapidly being lost due to rising sea-levels and overdevelopment. The loss of this habitat in locations such as Galveston Island, Texas, is detrimental to both the natural environment (the rare Sea Oats and the endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle) and the human environment (sand dune habitats protect houses and infrastructure from storm surges). A spatially-explicit understanding of sand dune plants, both their characteristics and their responses to sea-level rise, climate change, and development pressures, is key to preserving the habitat for generations to come.

The information and images presented here are from Feagin et al. 5 year study at Pirates Beach located on Galveston Island Texas.

The site had four possible states, consisting of bareground (0), colonizer plants (1), soil binder plants (2), or competitive plants (3). Because sand dune succession is based on facilitation by adjacent plants, as well as the amelioration of environmental constraints by previous successional stages, each state represented one step in the successional sequence. For example, the site could start as bareground and move through the three subsequent successional stages if an adequate number of other plants were growing in adjacent locations. The relative effect of a site upon an adjacent site, through facilitation, was based on proximity, as detailed in Feagin et al. (2005) and Feagin et al. (2007).