Comparative Ecology of Tidal Freshwater and Salt Marshes

After several decades of intensive research in salt marshes, both community structure and basic ecological processes are reasonably well understood (44, 50, 78, 88). Further up the estuary, however, the often extensive tracts of tidal freshwater wetlands (Figure 1) are not so well researched (52, 99, 113). Historically, tidal freshwater environments have been ignored by limnologists because of the presence of oceanic tidal influence, and neglected by marine ecologists because they are bathed by freshwater and inhabited primarily by freshwater organisms.