MacAvory et al.: Anadromous fish as marine nutrient vectors 
173 
where spawning adult anadromous fish are consumed 
by piscivorous fish. In order to fully understand the 
importance of a migratory or transitory nutrient source 
to consumers, the time required for that nutrient to be 
incorporated must be understood, thereby allowing a 
temporal evaluation of ecosystem structure. While the 
results of this study suggest that marine material does 
not form a substantial nutrient source to most of the 
fish community, more work needs to be done to investi- 
gate marine inputs derived from spawning anadromous 
fish, to other, lower order components of East Coast 
United States tidal freshwater systems. 
Acknowledgments 
We thank Mark King, Steve Mclninch, and William 
Shuart at Virginia Commonwealth University, Depart- 
ment of Environmental Studies. This work was partially 
supported by the NOAA-Chesapeake Bay Office, a Moore 
Award from The University of Virginia, and a Mellon 
Award from American University. 
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