Transcript Salt Marsh Plants

Salt Marsh Plants
Spartina
Plants in a salt marsh
• Plants are the producers of organic material,
which in turn becomes food for other species, or
decomposes into nutrients. Once the Salt-water
Cord-grass establishes itself in a salt marsh,
other salt-loving plants follow. These plants are
termed halophytic and have the unique ability to
excrete excess salt and/or retain water.
• Larger salt marshes can be divided into two
sections, the high and the low marsh. Each has
a distinct plant community.
Patches of salt marsh in the high
salinity section of the estuary
Salt marsh along the flanks of the
high salinity section
Pioneer salt marsh plants
colonizing bare sand habitat
Freshwater marsh with salt
marsh fringe at low salinity area
Salt marsh behind Island
Spartina alterniflora
(Smooth Cordgrass)
S. patens (Salt meadow cordgrass)
BIOLOGICAL FEATURES
Animals and plants that live in the salt
marsh reap the benefits of an ecosystem
that has plenty of food to offer. They have
adapted to the changing salinity, the warm
water, and the tides.
Who Lives Where?
…In a salt marsh
1 Lesser Yellowlegs
2 Rush
3 Sea-Milkwort
4 Sharp-tailed Sparrow
5 Black Duck
6 Salt-meadow Grass
7 Great Blue Heron
8 Arrow-grass
9 Common Snipe
10 Sea-Lavender
11 Glasswort
12 Raccoon
13 Salt-water Cord-grass
14 Sedge
15 Mud Crab
16 Semipalmated Sandpiper
17 Worm
18 Amphipod
19 Isopod
20 Mosquito larve
21 Mud Dog Whelk
22 Soft-shelled Clam
23 Mummichogs
24 Atlantic Silverside
25 Sand shrimp
26 Threespine Stickleback
27 Black-bellied Plover
28 Ditch-grass
Salt marsh community
in review…
A relatively flat grass covered coastal area occurring
within the estuarian ecosystems in temperate climates.
Its partially flooded by tides (tidal march or wet land).
The marsh can be thin or very wide and is one of most
productive habitats in the marine environment. Vast
quantities of food are produced by marsh grass
(Spartina) and algae that live on the surface of the mud.
Photosynthesis is fastest at low tide and an ample
supply of nutrients (nitrates, phosphates and sulfates) in
the estuary make a high rate of food production possible.
(nutrient rich water bought in each high tide). Blue-green
algae convert atmospheric Nitrogen into nitrates .
Value…
Salt marsh producers grow rapidly and absorb minerals at a fast rate.
Spartina grass and other marsh producers have a short life. Floating
seaweed and debris are dumped onto the marsh at high tide and as this
and the marsh grass dies, teeming masses of bacteria break down the
complex plant material into detritus.
Isopods, insects, fiddler crabs, marsh snails eat the decaying plant tissue,
digest it, and excrete wastes that include nitrate, phosphate and sulfate.
By quickly converting the decaying material into inorganic material, these
detritus feeders speed the growth of living marsh plants.
Each tide carries much of the detritus and minerals into the offshore water
with phytoplankton using the minerals, clams, mussels, worms, and
sponges eat pieces of detritus. These excrete minerals when they break
down the detritus adding more, and this rapid cycling of minerals is a
unique feature of the tidal salt marsh, making the high rate of primary
productivity possible.
Wetlands near cities also have an additional source of minerals for
producers with the billions of gallons of sewage/treated and untreated,
discharged into coastal waters (as well as PCBs, bacteria, viruses, heavy
metals, which can be ingested by marine organisms and be passed on to
humans).