ISSN:
1573-5125
Keywords:
outwelling
;
salt marshes
;
organic matter
;
transfer
;
fish
;
vector
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
Notes:
Abstract The contribution of fish communities to organic matter (OM) fluxes, especially between salt marshes and adjacent marine coastal waters are reviewed. For this a data set from the bay of Mont Saint-Michel and literature is examined and discussed. In a range of macro-tidal coasts of Europe, salt marshes are only flooded at spring tides for a short time. Many animals, including fish, then invade the salt marshes through tidal creeks. They forage there for up to a few hours and swim back to sea at ebb. Meanwhile, organic matter is exported as gut content. In the 4000 ha of salt marshes of the bay of Mont Saint-Michel mullets were responsible for the export of about 8 kg of dry weight OM ha−1 in 1996 and of roughly 12 kg in 1997. Although spatio-temporally variable, the fish communities appear to play a more or less significant role, as ‘biotic vectors’ in the nutrient fluxes between salt marshes and coastal waters.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1009956605842
