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Salt Marsh Ecoscapes and Production Transfers by Estuarine Nekton in the Southeastern United States

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Concepts and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology

Abstract

Understanding the role of tidal marshes in supporting estuarine nekton populations requires consideration of how different species and life stages use, and depend on, a variety of habitats. The problem might best be viewed from the perspective of a tidal marsh ecoscape, which relates variation in ecological interactions or processes to spatial patterns that emerge when associated marsh habitats are viewed together as a functional unit. Vegetated intertidal habitats, which define the salt marsh and account for most of its areal extent and productivity, are not used directly by most species of estuarine nekton in the southeastern U.S. If they function in the trophic support of these populations, marshes might supply dissolved nutrients to drive primary production in adjacent open waters or they could be a source of passively transported particles (i.e. drift) gathered by nekton from the water column or epibenthos. Alternatively, the few groups of nekton (mostly small marsh resident species) that feed within the marsh vegetation may actively translocate intertidal production horizontally across boundaries within the marsh ecoscape in a type of “trophic relay”. Transfers to open estuarine waters may occur when material is either excreted in subtidal aquatic refugia at low tide, or accumulated biomass is passed along via predator-prey interactions. Temporal and spatial constraints on mobility and feeding behavior of nekton groups likely limit such production transfers to certain places and times, described as “shifting interaction zones”. Identifying these interaction zones within the marsh ecoscape is a prerequisite for developing methods and sampling programs that will provide the type of information needed to address long-standing issues involving the role of nekton in the ecology of estuaries and the functional contribution of marshes to estuarine fisheries.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Georgia Marine Institute, Sapelo Island, GA, 31327, USA

    R. T. Kneib

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  1. R. T. Kneib
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, Fort Hancock, NJ, USA

    Michael P. Weinstein

  2. Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Daniel A. Kreeger

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© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers

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Kneib, R.T. (2002). Salt Marsh Ecoscapes and Production Transfers by Estuarine Nekton in the Southeastern United States. In: Weinstein, M.P., Kreeger, D.A. (eds) Concepts and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47534-0_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47534-0_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-6019-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-306-47534-4

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