x = maximum abundance of the most abundant species (i.e., 

 guide species within a guild) 



y = log x 



highly abundant = x to 10'* "^ 

 abundant = 1(P " s "-l to 10 1 - 25 "' 

 common = lO'-^'-l to lO'"- 75 ? 1 

 rare = lO^^-l to 1 



The ELMR abundance rankings for Wells Harbor 

 incorporated these derived data, and all other avail- 

 able data, and are summarized in the North Atlantic 

 ELMR report (Jury et al. 1994, Monaco 1995). From 

 1995 to the present, a "quantile analysis," rather than 

 the "order of magnitude" method, has been used to 

 update and revise the ELMR data base for the Gulf of 

 Mexico, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and North Atlantic 

 regions. 



Approximately eight years were required to develop 

 the 6,252 data sheets and consult with 441 scientists 

 and managers at 177 institutions (see regional reports 

 for names and affiliations). As stated previously, this 

 review process complemented the information gath- 

 ered from the literature and published data sets com- 

 piled by NOAA. 



Life History Summaries and Tables 



To complement the distribution and abundance infor- 

 mation described above, a life history summary and a 

 set of life history tables have been developed for each 

 species. These summaries and tables have been pub- 

 lished for the West Coast (Emmett et al. 1991) and the 

 Gulf of Mexico (Pattillo et al. 1997) regions. The 

 summaries are not intended to be a complete treatise 

 on all aspects of each species' biology, but rather, they 

 provide a concise account of the most important physi- 

 cal and biological factors known to affect a species' 

 occurrence within estuaries. As a supplement to the 

 life history summaries, their content was augmented 

 with additional physical and biological criteria and 

 condensed into three life history tables. These tables 

 present life history characteristics for each species, 

 along with behavioral traits and preferred habitats. 



Life History Summaries. A concise life history sum- 

 mary was written for each species to provide an 

 overview of how and when a species uses estuaries 

 and what specific habitats it uses. The summaries 

 emphasize species-specific life history characteristics 

 that relate directly to estuarine spatial and temporal 

 distribution and abundance (e.g., many molluscs have 

 particular salinity and substrate preferences). Infor- 

 mation for the species life history summaries was 

 gathered primarily from published and unpublished 



literature, and experts with species-specific knowl- 

 edge were also consulted. Summaries were written 

 using a prescribed format and outline (Table 5, next 

 page). 



Included with each species life history summary is a 

 relative abundance table based on regional ELMR 

 data, with minor revisions based on review. These 

 tables provide a synopsis of the species' occurrence in 

 the regional estuaries. Information for each table was 

 obtained by summarizing the ELMR data for each 

 month of the year and across all salinity zones to 

 obtain the highest level of abundance for each life 

 stage. Hence, these tables depict a species' highest 

 abundance within an estuary by life stage, but lack 

 temporal and spatial resolution. Examples are pro- 

 vided in Tables 6 and 7, p. 14. 



Life History Tables. While the species life history 

 summaries provide brief accounts of important life 

 history attributes, they do not permit a direct and 

 simple assessment of characteristics that a species 

 shares with others. Furthermore, many life history 

 attributes are categorical (e.g., feeding types can be 

 classified as carnivore, herbivore, detritivore, etc.) 

 and more easily viewed in a tabular format. There- 

 fore, information found in the species life history 

 summaries was augmented with additional physical 

 and biological criteria and condensed into three life 

 history tables: Habitat Associations, Biological At- 

 tributes, and Reproduction (Figure 5, p. 13). These 

 tables present life history characteristics for each spe- 

 cies along with behavior traits and preferred habitats. 

 They reflect the most current information about a 

 species as gathered from published and unpublished 

 literature and can be used to quickly identify species 

 with similar traits. Figure 5 depicts the headers used 

 for these tables in the Gulf of Mexico Volume 11 report 

 (Pattillo et al. 1997). 



Text continues on p. 15. 



11 



