ZOL 353 Lecture 35: Tidelands Spartina salt marshes
Document Summary
Includes many different types, such as salt marsh, bare mudflats, rocky shores, mangroves. Two obligate e/gulf coast salt-marsh sparrow species: the salt-marsh sparrow is adapted to the spartina patens and. Unlike other sparrows, it repairs its nest, retrieves eggs, and starts nesting right after spring tide: the seaside sparrow nests low in the spartina right above high- water levels because this greatly lowers its predation risk. Rising sea levels will alter its nestling survival rates. Geographical distribution of saltmarshes (yellow: e/gulf coasts, california, caribbean, s europe, middle east, ne. Asia, australia: some spartina species have been introduced and are now invasive species, e. g. in pacific nw, mangroves largely replace salt marshes in more tropical areas. Arenicola marina is also an ecosystem engineer, building u-shaped burrows: this destabilizes the sediment so spartina anglica cannot colonize well, where s. anglica already established, sediment too clogged with rhizomes for lungworms to burrow.
