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 Estuaries are among the world’s most productive natural ecosystems. The interaction between land and water resources leads to virtually unrivaled productivity that supports major coastal fisheries around the globe. More than two-thirds of the recreationally and commercially important fishes in the United States depend on tidal wetlands and associated estuarine waters for nursery and spawning grounds, and for some states, more than 90 percent of these species depend on the marsh–estuary complex. The location of tidal wetlands along the coastlines worldwide has made them important places for migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and wading birds. Wetlands provide food and resting areas during critical migration periods, and they also provide nesting and feeding habitats for many species. Northeastern salt marshes are the primary overwintering habitat for black duck. Tidal flats along the Atlantic Flyway are vital feeding grounds for shorebirds migrating from northern breeding grounds to wintering grounds in South America. The vegetation of St. Lawrence tidal marshes provides food for greater snow geese during migration , while salt marshes of the Atlantic Coast from southern New Jersey to South Carolina provide their winter diet. Furbearers , such as muskrat and otter, make their homes in brackish and tidal fresh marshes. The estuary is such a rich ecosystem because it receives nutrients from tidal wetlands, phytoplankton, and runoff from rivers and streams. It is a mixing bowl where nutrients accumulate and eventually are converted to food for macroinvertebrates and herbivorous fishes, which then become food for larger animals. Tidal marshes contribute millions of tons of organic matter to these ecosystems each year. The most productive of North American tidal marshes produce more than ten tons of organic matter annually, rivaling the continent’s most productive cornfields. The organic matter of the wetlands comes mostly from the leaves and stems of herbaceous plants. Each fall, when these plants die back, their leaves and stems are gradually broken down into small fragments called detritus. This detritus is enriched by microbes and provides food for a multitude of microorganisms (e.g., zooplankton), forage fishes (e.g., killifish, mullet, menhaden, and alewife), and grass shrimp, which in turn become food for larger fishes, such as bluefish, weakfish, and striped bass. These fishes are important food for humans, which completes the food-chain link between tidal wetlands and people. Introduction Tidal wetlands perform other services that are valued by people: (1) flood and storm damage protection by temporarily storing floodwaters and by buffering dry land from a storm’s wave action, (2) water quality maintenance by removing sediment , nutrients, and other materials from flooding waters, (3) shellfish production, (4) recreation, such as waterfowl hunting, crabbing, fishing, nature photography, landscape painting, and bird watching, and (5) aesthetics—simply enjoying the natural landscape. Because of these varied roles, wetlands are now recognized among the world’s most valuable natural resources, and some governments have developed laws to protect them or policies to stimulate wetland conservation. For example, the United States has numerous laws that regulate tidal wetlands at the federal and state levels. The Rivers and Harbors Act and the Clean Water Act are major U.S. federal laws that help protect and conserve wetlands. All coastal states in the northeastern United States have passed specific laws to protect tidal wetlands from filling, dredging, and other human-caused alterations . The first state law to protect tidal wetlands was passed by the Massachusetts legislature in 1963. Other New England states followed suit with Rhode Island and Connecticut passing similar laws in 1968 and 1969, respectively. By 1973, northeastern states from New Hampshire through Maryland had enacted laws to protect these wetlands. The main feature used to identify wetland areas for these state laws is vegetation—the presence of plant species adapted to life in tidally flooded areas. These laws list numerous plants that are characteristic of these wetlands. Plant identification is, therefore, an important step toward identifying tidal wetlands. This book is a field guide for identifying plants found in tidal wetlands from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Bay of Fundy to Delaware and Chesapeake Bays. The book is divided into four sections: (1) Tidal Wetland Types, (2) Overview of Plant Characteristics, (3) How to Identify Plants Using this Book, and (4) Plant Descriptions and Illustrations. The first section contains a brief introduction to major types of tidal wetlands in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada. The next part of the book is an overview of plant properties, providing essential background information to help identify the plants...

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