PREFACE 



This community profile is part of a 

 developing series of publications 

 concerning coastal habitats. Its purpose 

 is to describe the structure and 

 functioning of coastal salt marshes of 

 southern California. Cowardin et al. 

 (1979) classify this habitat as occurring 

 in the Californian province, estuarine 

 system, intertidal subsystem, emergent 

 wetland class and persistent subclass. 

 Water regimes vary from regularly flooded 

 to irregularly flooded, and water 

 chemistry is euhaline to hypersaline, with 

 occasional mixohaline conditions. 



The profile brings together a wide 

 range of information on coastal salt 

 marshes, with emphasis on the vegetation 

 which dominates the intertidal sediments. 

 Several conceptual models are suggested as 

 hypotheses of marsh dynamics, e.g. how 

 vegetation becomes established on bare 

 soils, the role that algal mats play in 

 marsh food production, how food is 

 transferred through consumers, and how 

 nutrients and organic matter move back and 

 forth between the marsh and its adjacent 



tidal creeks. These models should be 

 viewed as tentative, and future research 

 should test them rigorously. 



The first chapter describes the 

 physiographic setting of southern 

 California coastal wetlands. Chapter 2 

 describes vascular plant vegetation; 

 Chapter 3 summarizes the sparse 

 information on soil algal communities, and 

 Chapter h compares the functional roles of 

 both plant types in overall salt-marsh 

 functioning. Chapter 5 examines the marsh 

 fauna, and the final chapter relates the 

 ecological information to current 

 management problems. 



Any questions or comments about or 

 requests for this publication should be 

 directed to: 



Information Transfer Specialist 

 National Coastal Ecosystems 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

 NASA-Slidell Computer Complex 

 1010 Cause Boulevard 

 Slidell, Louisiana 70458 



Team 



