Hydrologic influences on the ecologic and sedimentary history of Matagorda Bay
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abstract
Estuarine ecosystems are heavily influenced by changes in freshwater inflows from the drainage basin and saltwater intrusions from the ocean. Estuaries also serve as critical nurseries and habitats for economically important finfish and shellfish species, which can have narrow tolerances for changes in salinity and sedimentation. Understanding the ecosystem changes that occur with both natural and anthropogenic changes to estuary inflows is important for establishing ecological restoration targets and supporting actions to maintain ecosystem health. Sedimentary records in estuaries retain information about changes in sedimentation rates and sediment sources through time and preserve a timeline of fossil hard parts and biomarkers of the organisms that once lived in the estuary. Thus, we can reconstruct the history of ecosystem changes in an estuary against a background of past environmental changes even where real-time ecological monitoring is lacking.
