1 



Bacteria 



Fungi 



Protozoa 



Nematodes 

 Turbellarians 

 Gastrotrichs 

 Polychaete larvae 



Harpacticoid copepods 

 Ostracods 



Polychaetes 

 Amphipods 

 01 igochaetes 

 Tenaiads 

 Isopods 

 Melampus sp. 

 Caridean shrimp 

 Fiddler crabs 

 Small blue crabs 

 Littorina snails 

 Neritina snails 

 Carol ina marsh clam 



Penaeid shrimp 

 Blue crab 

 Sea catfish 

 Blue catfish 

 Channel catfish 

 Largemouth bass 

 Black drum 

 Red drum 

 Striped mullet 

 Silver perch 

 Spotted gar 

 Alligator gar 

 Yellow bass 



f ^F~)» Microbes * 



I Detmus j'-f I J 1 



Macro - 

 Denthos 



MetobenTfTos 



Clapper rail 

 Sora 



Belted kingfisher 

 Fish crow 

 Black duck 

 Least bittern 

 Northern shoveler 

 Hooded merganser 

 American avocet 

 Western sandpiper 

 Solitary sandpiper 

 Wil son' s phalarope 

 Common snipe 

 Dunl in 



Piping plover 

 Kill deer 



Speckled trout 



Gizzard shad 



Hogchoker 



Pinfish (juvenile) 



Spot 



Tidewater silverside 



Atlantic croaker 



American alligator 

 Snapping turtle 

 Mississippi mud turtle 

 Red-eared turtle 

 Graham's water snake 

 Western ribbon snake 



Figure 54. Major pathways of organic 

 marsh and associated water bodies. 



energy 



salt 



macrofauna to fish is long. The overall 

 energy transferred to the nektonic level 

 is a small fraction of primary production. 



Figure 54 also shows a feedback loop 

 from macrobenthos to detritus. 



Macrobenthic animals actively shred and 

 break up detritus in their feeding 

 activity, increasing its surface area and 

 making it more readily decomposed. For 

 example, Val i el a et al . (1982) estimated 



that exclosures that keep detritivores 

 away from decaying litter reduce the 

 decomposition rate by as much as 30-50 

 percent. 



Nekton 



Numerous fish species are found in 

 the delta marshes (Appendix 3). These 

 include a broad array of year-round 

 residents with varying salinity tolerance 



61 



