Estuaries:Estuaries:

Mud Flats and Seagrass Meadows

By: Paige Leeper, Madison Ralph, Caroline Robbins, and Marissa Babbs

Mud FlatsMud Flats

• Mud flats, found in bays and around rivers, contain an abundant amount of organic deposits.

• An odor of rotten eggs is produced by bacteria and other microorganisms that give off a sulfur-containing gas.

• Mud flats, which are a mixture of sand and mud, primarily support burrowing organisms with very thin shells or soft bodies.

Mud Flat: Food Webs

• The main energy source of mudflats is organic matter made of decaying remains.

• Bacteria recycle nutrients (nitrogen and phosphate) back to the sea.

• The bacteria containing organic material is fed on by higher-level consumers.

Animals of the Mud Animals of the Mud Flats:Flats:

•Soft Shelled Clam ( Mya Arenaria)

•Lugworms (Arenicola)

•Inkeeper Worm (Urechis)

•Red Scaleworm (family Polynoidae)

•Pea Crabs (Pinnotheridae)

•Gobies ( Gobiidae)

•Ghost Shrimp (Callianassa)

Seagrass Meadows

• Seagrasses are plants that produce flowers underneath the water; they have root systems that stabilize the sand.

• They thrive in protected waters from low tide zone to a depth of twenty feet.

• Provide an important food source and shelter a huge source of marine plants and animals.

Seagrass Meadows:Productivity

• Can be productive communities but depend on the ability to extract nutrients from the sediments.

• Symbiotic, nitrogen fixing bacteria are also active in the seagrass meadows.

• They release the nutrients absorbed from the water, then algae species use them to maintain a high level of productivity.

Seagrass Meadows:Habitat

• Surfaces of seagrasses are a place of attachment for many tiny organisms (epiphytes and epifauna)

• A wide variety of filter feeders live in the sand.

• High productivity allows them to support a large and diverse group of organisms.

• In seagrass habitats organisms are free from predators.

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