CONTENTS 



Page 



CONVERSION FACTORS, U.S. CUSTOMARY TO METRIC (SI) 6 



I INTRODUCTION 7 



II OBJECTIVE ■ 7 



III PREVIOUS WORK 7 



IV METHODS AND PROCEDURES 10 



1. Plant Selection 10 



2. Survey of Existing Marshes 11 



3. Field Planting Sites 11 



4. Planting Procedures 14 



5. Experimental Design for Field Plantings 17 



V RESULTS 20 



1. Survey of Natural Cordgrass Marshes 20 



2. Laboratory Studies on Seed Germination 20 



3. Comparison of Seeds, Sprigs, and Plugs 25 



4. Plugs with Wave Breakers 25 



5. Cordgrass-Mussel Bioconstructs 29 



VI SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION 33 



VII CONCLUSIONS 36 



LITERATURE CITED 37 



TABLES 



1 Salinity levels in San Francisco Bay 14 



2 Characteristics of shoreline test sites 15 



3 Measurements of California cordgrass stands in San 



Francisco Bay 22 



4 Comparison of survival and growth of plugs with and without 



wave breakers 27 



5 Comparison of cordgrass-mussel bioconstruct survival and 



growth, Alameda Creek 31 



6 Comparison of cordgrass-mussel bioconstruct-rhizome 



development in months after planting 31 



7 Summary of cordgrass planting results 34 



8 Comparison of biomass of smooth and California cordgrasses 



in laboratory experiments 36 



4 



