Export of macroinvertebrate prey from tidal freshwater wetlands provides a significant energy subsidy for outmigrating juvenile salmon.

ABSTRACT: Tidal freshwater wetlands linking terrestrial, riverine, and saline habitats are critical areas for material processing and exchange. Once historically widespread, herbaceous marsh and forested tidal freshwater wetlands especially are now highly degraded worldwide. Additionally, quantitative assessments of hydrology and material exchange from these systems are lacking compared to lotic and estuarine (saltmarsh) habitats. Here we investigate macroinvertebrate and energy export from tidal marsh and forested wetlands and consider potential benefits from this ecological process to endangered Pacific salmon in a large tidal freshwater system, the Columbia River (USA). Macroinvertebrate (salmon prey) concentration, water velocity, and discharge were measured at several wetland habitat types (for

SUBMITTER: Roegner GC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10022792 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature