Recaptures of striped bass, Morone saxatilis, tagged along the northeast Atlantic coast of the United States from 1959 to 1963 gave evidence of varied patterns of seasonal movement of the species. From analysis of distribution patterns of 498 recaptured fish, it is shown that distinguishable contingents of striped bass seasonally inhabit Long Island Sound and coastal waters of the New York Bight. Three groups that appeared to be of Hudson River origin were the Hudson Estuary, Hudson-Atlantic, and Hudson-West Sound Contingents. The origin of a fourth group, the Long Island Sound Contingent, was not evident. Other contingents, of southern or undetermined origin, also appeared in the area from spring to fall. The Hudson River is shown to be a major spawning river and source of recruitment of striped bass populations of Long Island Sound and the New York Bight. INTRODUCTION The striped bass, Morone saxatilis (Walbaum), is an anadromous fish of a family that includes fresh water, coastal, and oceanic members. On the Atlantic coast striped bass occur from northern Florida to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in tidal rivers, estuaries and bays, and along the open coast. They are most abundant in protected waters from North Carolina to Massachusetts and along the open coast from Delaware Bay to Cape Cod.Evidence from many studies suggests that the species is not homogeneous, but rather divided into a number of separate groups. In the southern part of their range, striped bass tend to remain within protected waters during their full life span with the effect that the group resident in any river-estuary system remains isolated from other groups. But from Chesapeake Bay north to New England, substantial numbers of striped bass leave their birthplaces when they are three or more years old and thereafter migrate in groups along the open coast, moving generally north in summer and south in winter. These fish are often referred to collectively as the "coastal migratory stock" or a similar term, suggesting that they form one homogeneous group. Although it is convenient to use this collective term, the "coastal migratory stock" is probably in itself heterogeneous, consisting of many migratory contingents of diverse origins.We use the term population in this report in its general sense; i.e., to refer to all striped bass that occupy a given area within the range of the species (Lagler, Bardach, and Miller, 1962). The inclusiveness of the term variesand is to be inferred from context, since it can include all striped bass of the Atlantic or only those appearing in a small area. The term contingent is used to describe a group of fish that engage in a common pattern of seasonal migration between feeding areas, wintering areas, and spawning areas.

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Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is one of the most important biogeochemical components influencing productivity, nutrient cycling, and optical properties of aquatic environments. DOM fuels heterotrophic

Complicated biogeochemical cycling and differential organic matter reactivity make quantifying the relative contribution of a given source of organic carbon to the standing stock within an estuary difficult. Here, a new model of tidal marsh-estuary organic carbon cycling is presented for the Rhode River, MD, a well-studied tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, USA. A dissolved organic carbon (DOC) budget was estimated by summing the source and sink terms and the advection of water within the tributary. 13.1% and 15.3% of the total DOC input to the Rhode River entered from the marsh and the watershed, respectively, and 52.6% was derived from phytoplankton production. Extrapolating to the entire year, 35.5 Mg of DOC is exported to the main stem of Chesapeake Bay annually, which accounts for 12.3% of the total allochthonous and autochthonous inputs to the estuary. Removing the modeled marsh at the head of the Rhode River decreased export of DOC to the main stem by 39.2%, and up to 56% of the estuarine DOC standing stock can be attributed to the marsh. The model described here can be used across temperate estuarine systems and provides a new methodology for quantifying the amount of DOC that can be attributed to or lost by specific source and sink pathways.Plain Language Summary Tidal wetlands are potentially significant in global carbon cycling, taking large quantities of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and fixing it as plant and root biomass. Some of this fixed carbon is buried on long time scales, but a large portion is also transported out of wetlands into estuaries. Understanding where the carbon goes and how long it takes to get there is important for carbon cycling and potentially feedbacks related to climate change. The role tidal wetlands play in estuary carbon cycling and biogeochemistry is complex, and this paper uses a computer model to give insight into how these two important systems are linked. We found that a tidal wetland in a tributary of Chesapeake Bay contributes a large portion (39%) to the total organic carbon export from the tributary. This implies that relative to their inputs, tidal wetlands potentially contribute a greater portion to the total export from estuaries. Wetlands are thus potentially more important in carbon budgets than their inputs to estuaries would suggest.