Distribution and Abundance of Tidal Marshes along the Coast of Maine

Jacobson, Heather A.; Jacobson, George L.; Kelley, Joseph T.

doi:10.2307/1352176

Cited by 34 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Fringing marshes are narrow and individually small in area (Morgan 2000) and are therefore often overlooked in surveys designed to estimate the total marsh area of a region. Jacobson et al (1987) found that earlier studies greatly underestimated the total marsh area in the state of Maine, probably because many small marshes were missed as a result of inaccurate mapping techniques or poor quality equipment. However, fringing marshes contribute significantly to the area of northern New England salt marshes, and they provide many important functions, such as filtration and trapping of sediments, dampening of wave energy, maintenance of plant diversity, and plant production (Morgan 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Impacts of Seawalls on Saltmarsh Plant Communities in the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire USA

Bozek

Burdick

2005

Wetlands Ecol Manage

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Seawalls are often built along naturally dynamic coastlines, including the upland edge of salt marshes, in order to prevent erosion or to extend properties seaward. The impacts of seawalls on fringing salt marshes were studied at five pairs of walled and natural marshes in the Great Bay Estuary of New Hampshire, USA. Marsh plant species and communities showed no difference in front of walls when compared with similar elevations at paired controls. However, seawalls eliminated the vegetative transition zone at the upper border. Not only did the plant community of the transition zone have high plant diversity relative to the low marsh, but it varied greatly from site to site in the estuary. The effects of seawall presence on other marsh processes, including sediment movement, wrack accumulation, groundwater flow, and vegetation distribution and growth, were examined. Although no statistically significant effects of seawalls were found, variation in the indicators of these processes were largely controlled by wave exposure, site-specific geomorphology and land use, and distance of the sampling station from the upland. Trends indicated there was more sediment movement close to seawalls at high energy sites and less fine grain sediment near seawalls. Both trends are consistent with an increase in energy from wave reflection. The distribution of seawalls bordering salt marshes was mapped for Great and Little Bays and their rivers. Throughout the study area, 3.54% of the marshes were bounded by shoreline armoring (5876 m of seawalls along 165.8 km of marsh shoreline). Localized areas with high population densities had up to 43% of marshes bounded by seawalls. Coastal managers should consider limiting seawall construction to preserve plant diversity at the upper borders of salt marshes and prevent marsh habitat loss due to transgression associated with sea level rise.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Impacts of Seawalls on Saltmarsh Plant Communities in the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire USA

Bozek

Burdick

2005

Wetlands Ecol Manage

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“…The shoreline is diverse, consisting of extensive regions of tectonically deformed metamorphic rock, granites and other igneous intrusions, as well as sandy and gravelly shorelines of varying lengths. Salt marshes are mostly small and comparatively infrequent in rock -dominated sections of the coast, but are substantial in the aggregate and extensive along some sections of coast in the Bay of Fundy and in the southern Gulf (Gordon et al 1985 ;Jacobson et al . 1987 ).…”

Section: Environmental and Biogeographic Setting And History Of Humanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity Knowledge and its Application in the Gulf of Maine Area

Incze

Lawton

Ellis

et al. 2010

Life in the World's Oceans

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“…This value is within an order of magnitude of estimates of recent carbon sequestration rates determined for high salt marsh sediments in the Bay of Fundy, eastern North America (Chmura et al, 2003) and southern California (Brevik and Homburg, 2004). Maine salt marshes cover an area of ~79 km 2 , more than any other state north of New Jersey (Jacobson et al, 1987), therefore their importance as a carbon sink should not be overlooked.…”

Section: Carbon Sequestrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The isotopic offset between the bulk sediments and the HPLW should be consistent in unaltered material dominated by terrestrial plant deposition due to the refractory nature of the HPLW. We use the isotopic offset between HPLW and bulk sediments to evaluate diagenetic alteration of the SOM at Sprague Sprague Marsh is classified as a back-barrier marsh (after Kelley et al, 1988;Gehrels et al, 1996) in the south-central region of the Gulf of Maine (Jacobson et al, 1987). At the coring site, low marsh vegetation is found fringing the tidal channel and the ditches and is composed of the tall form of S. alterniflora.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Middle to late Holocene fluctuations of C3 and C4 vegetation in a Northern New England Salt Marsh, Sprague Marsh, Phippsburg Maine

Johnson

Moore

Lehmann

et al. 2007

Organic Geochemistry

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A 3.1 meter sediment core was analyzed for stable carbon isotope composition of organic matter and higher plant leaf wax (HPLW) lipid biomarkers to determine Holocene shifts in C 3 (higher high marsh) and C 4 (low and/or high marsh) plant deposition at the Sprague River Salt Marsh, Phippsburg, Maine. The carbon isotope composition of the bulk sediment and the HPLW parallel each other throughout most of the core, suggesting that terrestrial plants are an important source of organic matter to the sediments, and diagenetic alteration of the bulk sediments is minimal.

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Distribution and Abundance of Tidal Marshes along the Coast of Maine

Cited by 34 publications

References 9 publications

Impacts of Seawalls on Saltmarsh Plant Communities in the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire USA

Impacts of Seawalls on Saltmarsh Plant Communities in the Great Bay Estuary, New Hampshire USA

Biodiversity Knowledge and its Application in the Gulf of Maine Area

Middle to late Holocene fluctuations of C3 and C4 vegetation in a Northern New England Salt Marsh, Sprague Marsh, Phippsburg Maine

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