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Interactions of Salinity, Marsh Fragmentation and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation on Resident Nekton Assemblages of Coastal Marsh Ponds

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Abstract

Increases in relative sea level are fragmenting the emergent vegetation of Louisiana’s coastal marshes. Nekton abundance is likely impacted by salinity and whether emergent vegetation is replaced by submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) or open water. To assess these effects, we sampled nekton densities along a salinity gradient (categorized as freshwater, intermediate, and brackish marsh) in fragmented and non-fragmented areas. Total nekton density increased strongly with SAV in brackish marsh but only weakly in freshwater marsh (F 2,238 = 10.03, p < 0.0001). Freshwater and intermediate marshes had higher nekton densities when fragmented than when non-fragmented; this relationship was reversed in brackish marsh (F 2,238 = 8.89, p = 0.0002). Fragmentation, SAV, and salinity interacted to affect the densities of Gambusia affinis, Poecilia latipinna, Cyprinodon variegates, and Lucania parva. Our results suggest that the presence of both emergent vegetation and SAV was necessary for maintaining high nekton densities, with this combination being especially important in brackish marshes.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded in part by the Louisiana Board of Regents and the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program. Although the research described in this article has been funded in part by the EPA’s STAR program through grant R-82942001 to the Louisiana Board of Regents, it has not been subjected to any EPA review and therefore does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency and no official endorsement should be inferred. Support was also provided by the Graduate Student Organization of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. We are grateful to the Center for Ecology and Environmental Technology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and R. Holland for use of the airboat and towing vehicle. We gratefully acknowledge Mandalay NWR, P. Yakupzack, B Fortier, Apache Louisiana Minerals, and Burlington Resources for logistical support and access to the marsh. We also thank L. Rozas and R. Twilley for reviews of earlier versions of this manuscript. C. Green provided much assistance in the field.

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  1. Alan T. Hitch

    Present address: Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, University of California at Davis, 1 Shields Ave, Davis, CA, 95616, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 70504-2451, USA

    Alan T. Hitch, Kevin M. Purcell, Shannon B. Martin, Paul L. Klerks & Paul L. Leberg

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 58108, USA

    Kevin M. Purcell

  3. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, Eastpoint, FL, 32328, USA

    Shannon B. Martin

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Correspondence to Alan T. Hitch.

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Hitch, A.T., Purcell, K.M., Martin, S.B. et al. Interactions of Salinity, Marsh Fragmentation and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation on Resident Nekton Assemblages of Coastal Marsh Ponds. Estuaries and Coasts 34, 653–662 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-010-9367-1

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