Odum: 



you go into peat bogs. 



There is then no accepted notion of what a salt marsh succeeds 

 into, or doesn't succeed into. Is it unknown ? 



Chapman: Well, my experience Dr. Odum would be this. In those parts 



of the world with which I am familiar, a succession, if there 

 is one beyond the salt marsh at all, does tend to go into a 

 fresh water swamp rather than into anything else. 



Odum: 



Is this really established or is this on the assumption that 

 there is some kind of a sea level movement? 



Chapman: 



Odum: 



Chronic: 



Chapman: 



Odum: 



It is all very well to say "is this established". You know as 

 well as I do that establishing a succession is largely a matter 

 of interpretation of the field observations and you can really 

 only say there is a definite succession when you can go back 

 2 or 30 years and show that there is a movement of plants in 

 a particular area. 



You cannot even do it then because you do not know if the sea 

 level has been moving. 



What you are doing really is to prove that this is happening, 

 that the sea level is going down by means of the succession. 



Well, you must tie the thing in with any movements of sea 

 sea level that the oceanographers can produce at the same 

 time. I grant you that, but we have been specifically stating 

 that the sea level was remaining constant. Now you are intro- 

 ducing a further complication. 



Has it ever been done where the sea level is precisely enough 

 known that that strand line is not changing and that the marsh 

 does do such and such? 



Chapman: 



Moul: 



It has not been done for the simple reason that nobody has 

 produced subsequent maps of the salt marsh vegetation in 

 such an area. All one can do is say it looks as though this is 

 the sequence that is going to take place which, after all, is 

 what one does in a great deal of ecological work. 



I was just going to state that Heuser did some work in the 

 Hackensack meadows outside of Newark, N. J. Originally 

 Torrey had explored the area and there was a cedar swamp. 

 With the deepening of the Hackensack and Passaic rivers the 

 salt water came in there and there was a succession to 

 Phragmites. If you use the New Jersey Turnpike you can still 

 see the old dead cedars sticking above the Phragmites but it 



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