the majority of their food from areas 

 other than the marsh. Perhaps the grass 

 is of greater relative value for the 

 killifish as a refuge from predation 

 rather than as a food resource. Both 

 Fundulus species take less than 10% of 

 their food from the zooplankton. 



The sheepshead minnow also occurs in 

 New England salt marshes, though less 

 regularly than the related Fundulus 

 species. Its longer gut is characteristic 

 of feeders on vegetable materials and is 

 typically full of algae and detritus. 

 Thus, the sheepshead minnow is apparently 

 more herbivorous than its relatives (Werme 

 1981). 



Of the marsh sticklebacks, the 

 three-spined ( Gasterosteus aculeatus ) is 

 present in New England marshes only in 

 early spring during its breeding 

 activities. While there, it feeds 

 principally on zooplankton during daytime 

 high tides. The three-spined stickleback 

 is a typical nest builder. The male 

 builds a barrel-shaped nest out of grass 

 and other bits of vegetation glued 

 together with a secretion from his 

 kidneys. He attracts females to spawn 

 within the nest, fertilizes the eggs, and 

 then fiercely guards the nest area. Just 

 before hatching occurs, he tears the top 

 off the nest to aid the fry's escape and 

 continues to guard them until they can 

 care for themselves. The four-spined 

 stickleback ( Apeltes quadracus ) is a 

 permanent resident of the salt marsh. It 

 also feeds mostly during daylight. This 

 species feeds on meiofauna in the marsh 

 shallows to which it has access only at 

 high tides. The nine-spined stickleback 

 ( Pungitius pungitius ) is a more northern 

 species than the other two and is common 

 in salt marshes north of Cape Cod. 



Common eels ( Anguil la rostrata ) live 

 in the marshes only after they arrive as 

 elvers from the sea. Adult eels spawn in 

 the center of the Sargasso Sea at some 

 unknown depth. For about a year after 

 hatching, the young drift with the 

 currents as transparent, leaf-shaped 

 larvae (leptocephal i ) until they near the 

 shore. They then become cylindrical in 

 shape (elvers) and enter the coastal 

 areas. Eels may merely pass through the 

 salt marshes as they move through the area 



into freshwater as elvers or out of 

 freshwater as adults. However, they may 

 also spend their entire lives in salt 

 marshes where they are found mainly in the 

 muddy marsh creeks. Werme (1981) found 

 that the eels in her samples had fed 

 mostly upon benthic invertebrates. Eels 

 eat fish readily as can be seen by putting 

 minnow traps into the marsh creeks 

 overnight: mummichogs enter the traps and 

 serve as bait for the eels that enter at 

 night; by morning, the mummichogs have 

 been eaten and the eels remain in the 

 traps. 



The more common fishes that use Great 

 Sippewissett Salt Marsh as a nursery are 

 listed in Table 2. These are the 

 commercially and recreational ly 

 significant fishes found in the New 

 England salt marshes. Not as abundant 

 as the residents, they rarely get up 

 into the grassy parts of the marsh but 

 are generally confined within the creeks. 

 Alewives pass through the marsh en route 

 to their freshwater spawning grounds, and 

 their juveniles live in the marsh during 

 late summer. Menhaden, which are much 

 more abundant in the marshes of the 

 southeastern U.S. coast, also live in 

 Great Sippewissett in summer. They eat 

 phytoplankton, whereas the alewives eat 

 zooplankton. The primary value of the 

 marsh for schools of these young fish is 

 probably as a shallow refuge area. Mullet 

 feed on detritus and benefit from marsh 

 productivity as well as from its 

 protective shallows. 



The remainder of the fish listed in 

 Table 2 also primarily use the New England 

 marsh in their young stages. Young winter 

 flounder are present throughout the 

 summer; tautog and seabass appear in late 

 summer. These three species are all 

 bottom feeders and seem to prefer the 

 sandier parts of the marsh. Tautog and 

 bass eat amphipods and isopods, although 

 the bass also eat small fish and shrimp. 

 The young winter flounder concentrate 

 their feeding on annelid worms. Werme 

 (1981) has shown that young flounder, 

 tautog, and seabass all have larger mouths 

 than the same size killifish. As a 

 result, they eat food items larger than 

 can be handled by the killifish and so do 

 not compete with them for food. During 

 summer when these non-residents are 



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