ECOLOGY OF BUZZARDS BAY: An Estuarine Profile 



Abstract. Buzzards Bay remains one of the few relatively pristine bays in the metropolitan corridor from Washington to 

 Boston. The bay and its surrounding marshes and uplands have provided a variety of biotic resources not only to European settlers 

 over nearly 400 years but also to the Native Americans who relied on this estuary for thousands of years before them. Today the 

 uplands are divided between 1 8 communities, and while the bay is still exploited for its biotic resources, its aesthetic and recreational 

 values add to the growing concern to preserve its environmental quality. At the same time, it has become clear that the health of the 

 Buzzards Bay ecosystem, like almost all estuarine systems, is controlled not just by processes within the bay waters themselves but 

 also by inputs from the surrounding uplands as well. Therefore, to properly understand and manage this system, it is important to 

 detail activities and land use patterns within the watershed as well as within the tidal reach of the bay waters. This combined 

 watershed-bay system is referred to as the "Buzzards Bay Ecosystem" and is the necessary frame of reference for understanding the 

 biotic structure of the bay and for managing and conserving its resources. 



This community profile provides an overview of the ecology of the Buzzards Bay ecosystem. It is not intended to represent an 

 all-inclusive review of the literature; instead it is an attempt to present key features of the bay in a readily accessible form and to 

 summarize the dominant ecological processes that structure the bay environment. Because the current and future environmental 

 health of these types of embayments can be directly influenced by activities within contributing watersheds, understanding the 

 interactions between land and sea is an important component to understanding the ecosystem as a whole. The subjects addressed 

 in this profile, therefore, focus not only on the open bay waters but also on the ecology of Buzzards Bay within its watershed 

 including management issues and the difficulties in balancing demands for access and development while protecting water quality. 



Key words: Buzzards Bay. estuarine ecology, ecosystem, watershed 



