PREFACE 



In his classic description of the 

 New England shoreline, Douglas Johnson 

 (1925) recognized the coastal salt 

 marshes found from Maine through Long 

 Island as a type distinct from those 

 to the north ("Fundy Type") or south 

 ("Coastal Plain Type"). His distinc- 

 tion is still considered useful, and I 

 have tried to confine this community 

 profile to observations, measurements, 

 and experiments which have been made 

 in New England Type marshes. Although 

 it is widely recognized that New Eng- 

 land marshes are characterized or dis- 

 tinguished by a higher organic content 

 of the marsh peats, to iry knowledge no 

 one has yet shown rationale for not 

 extrapolating many of the concepts 

 gleaned from the much more extensively 

 researched Coastal Plain marshes to 

 this area. 



The focus of this profile is pri- 

 marily on the high marsh in New Eng- 

 land rather than the low, creekbank, 

 or regularly flooded areas which have 

 received most of the attention in the 

 ecological literature. All of the 

 marsh is intertidal, and it must be 

 understood and managed as a geomorpho- 

 logical and ecological unit. I hope 

 it will be useful to those working in 

 coastal planning, management, and re- 

 search to bring together much of the 

 information that has been developed on 

 this less frequently discussed, but 

 important area of the marsh. 



While the high marsh is commonly 

 thought of as lying between mean high 

 water and spring high water, the pro- 

 file drawn here has not always fol- 

 lowed such strict, and somewhat arbi- 

 trary, limits. Similarly, the major 



emphasis is on the Spartina patens - 

 Pi stichi is spicata community, but in 

 several cases I have included informa- 

 tion from the stunted S^. alterniflora 

 zone. The development of marshes and 

 the zonation of different species, 

 especially plant, receive more atten- 

 tion in this profile than do animal 

 populations or community metabolism. 

 This largely reflects the relative 

 abundance of information rather than 

 my own biases. I can only hope that 

 the gaps which are so evident in this 

 profile might stimulate future work in 

 these areas. 



Salt marshes of the New England 

 Type comprise less than 2% of the 

 marsh area along the Atlantic coast of 

 the United States (Reimold 1977), and 

 the high marsh may amount to only 25% 

 to 50% of that 2%.' The ratio of people 

 to wetland, however, is the highest in 

 the country (Gosselink and Baumann 

 1980), and there is a long tradition 

 in New England of using and valuing 

 the marshes. I hope this profile will 

 contribute to that tradition. 



S.W. Nixon 



Kingston, Rhode Island 



June 1980 



Any questions 

 or requests for 

 should be directed 



or comments about, 

 this publication 

 to: 



Information Transfer Specialist 

 National Coastal Ecosystems Team 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 NASA-SI idell Computer Complex 

 1010 Gause Boulevard 

 SI idell, Louisiana 70458 



m 



