Salt Marshes

A multidisciplinary review of salt marshes, describing how they function and respond to external pressures such as sea-level rise.

"Human Impacts on Salt Marshes provides an excellent global synthesis of an important, underappreciated environmental problem and suggests solutions to the diverse threats affecting salt marshes."—Peter B. Moyle, University of California, Davis

Tall green grass. Subtle melodies of songbirds. Sharp whines of muskrats. Rustles of water running through the grasses. And at low tide, a pungent reminder of the treasures hidden beneath the surface.All are vital signs of the great salt marshes' natural resources. Now championed as critical habitats for plants, animals, and people because of the environmental service and protection they provide, these ecological wonders were once considered unproductive wastelands, home solely to mosquitoes and toxic waste, and mistreated for centuries by the human population. Exploring the fascinating biodiversity of these boggy wetlands, Salt Marshes offers readers a wealth of essential information about a variety of plants, fish, and animals, the importance of these habitats, consequences of human neglect and thoughtless development, and insight into how these wetlands recover. Judith S. Weis and Carol A. Butler shed ample light on the human impact, including chapters on physical and biological alterations, pollution, and remediation and recovery programs. In addition to a national and global perspective, the authors place special emphasis on coastal wetlands in the Atlantic and Gulf regions, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, calling attention to their historical and economic legacies. Written in clear, easy-to-read language, Salt Marshes proves that the battles for preservation and conservation must continue, because threats to salt marshes ebb and flow like the water that runs through them.

The World of the Salt Marsh is a wide-ranging exploration of the southeastern coast—its natural history, its people and their way of life, and the historic and ongoing threats to its ecological survival. Focusing on areas from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, Charles Seabrook examines the ecological importance of the salt marsh, calling it “a biological factory without equal.” Twice-daily tides carry in a supply of nutrients that nourish vast meadows of spartina (Spartina alterniflora)—a crucial habitat for creatures ranging from tiny marine invertebrates to wading birds. The meadows provide vital nurseries for 80 percent of the seafood species, including oysters, crabs, shrimp, and a variety of finfish, and they are invaluable for storm protection, erosion prevention, and pollution filtration. Seabrook is also concerned with the plight of the people who make their living from the coast’s bounty and who carry on its unique culture. Among them are Charlie Phillips, a fishmonger whose livelihood is threatened by development in McIntosh County, Georgia, and Vera Manigault of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, a basket maker of Gullah-Geechee descent, who says that the sweetgrass needed to make her culturally significant wares is becoming scarcer. For all of the biodiversity and cultural history of the salt marshes, many still view them as vast wastelands to be drained, diked, or “improved” for development into highways and subdivisions. If people can better understand and appreciate these ecosystems, Seabrook contends, they are more likely to join the growing chorus of scientists, conservationists, fishermen, and coastal visitors and residents calling for protection of these truly amazing places.

The main focus of the research described in the opening chapter of Salt Marshes: Formation, Ecological Functions and Threats focuses on the study of the plant heritage of the Fuerteventura salt marshes and their surroundings, together with the analysis of their ecological value, threats to the marshes, and of use and recent management practices. The methodology used predominantly consists of field work, photo-interpretation4, and implementation of a GIS from the information obtained and the database generated. The Fuerteventura salt marshes are of great importance because of their vegetal wealth and role as a refuge for fauna, especially birds and invertebrates.The subtropical saltmarshes of Brazil are located in the South of Brazil, between the north-central coast of São Paulo state and the central coast of Santa Catarina state, and have been studied over the course of many years by the researchers M.R. Bornschein and B.L. Reinert, resulting in their recognition as a new ecosystem. Despite several ornithological researches in these marshes, little is known about detailed aspects of their ecology and other groups of animals. Thus, the authors provide a general description of this recently recognized ecosystem and the ecological influences over the species that live in these marshes, resulting in the fragile ecological balance point of Borschein-Reinert, and propose a mathematical index to this balance.Salt marshes develop in estuaries where there is reduced wave action, which allows for a source of sediment and suitable conditions for marsh plants to grow. The vegetation generally provides a structural habitat on featureless soft-sediment bottoms, and so it is utilized by a wide and diverse range of fish and invertebrates as their physical home, food supply and shelter from predators. The authors discuss the way in which species such as insects and crabs demonstrate variable levels of adaptation to life in this intertidal habitat, as well as how species composition and abundance of benthic invertebrates are strongly influenced by changes in the vegetation.

Sam Coyle's father lived in the shadows – an undercover agent among the spies and radicals of Cold War London. That world claimed his life, and Sam is haunted by his absence. He left nothing behind but his enemies; nothing to his daughter but his tradecraft and paranoia. Now, her boyfriend Luke is missing too – the one person she could trust, vanished into the fog on the Kentish coast. To find him, Sam must follow uncertain leads into a labyrinth of blind channels and shifting ground. She must navigate the treacherous expanse of the salt marsh... What people are saying about THE SALT MARSH: 'One of my favourite books, I loved it' 'A fast moving and gripping thriller you can't put down' 'I would urge you to read it if you like your crime multi-faceted with more of a literary leaning. Highly recommend' 'I can assure you it's haunting, and also very well written and evocative with a great sense of tension'

In 1968 when I forsook horticulture and plant physiology to try, with the help of Sea Grant funds, wetland ecology, it didn’t take long to discover a slim volume published in 1959 by the University of Georgia and edited by R. A. Ragotzkie, L. R. Pomeroy, J. M. Teal, and D. C. Scott, entitled “Proceedings of the Salt Marsh Conference” held in 1958 at the Marine Institute, Sapelo Island, Ga. Now forty years later, the Sapelo Island conference has been the major intellectual impetus, and another Sea Grant Program the major backer, of another symposium, the “International Symposium: Concepts and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology”. This one re-examines the ideas of that first conference, ideas that stimulated four decades of research and led to major legislation in the United States to conserve coastal wetlands. It is dedicated, appropriately, to two then young scientists – Eugene P. Odum and John M. Teal – whose inspiration has been the starting place for a generation of coastal wetland and estuarine research. I do not mean to suggest that wetland research started at Sapelo Island. In 1899 H. C. Cowles described successional processes in Lake Michigan freshwater marsh ponds. There is a large and valuable early literature about northern bogs, most of it from Europe and the former USSR, although Eville Gorham and R. L. Lindeman made significant contributions to the American literature before 1960. V. J.

Introduces young readers to hourly changes in the salt marsh as the tide comes and goes, following the animals that have adapted to this ever-changing environment as they hunt for food or play in the sun.