PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #37: Aquatic Ecology: Macrophytes. Presiding: J. Titus.
Tuesday, August 7, 2001. 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Hall of Ideas I.

Role of environmental variability in structuring Chesapeake Bay seagrass communities.

Wetzel, Richard¹, Moore, Kenneth¹, ¹

ABSTRACT- Zostera marina L. (eelgrass) has been the subject of intense field and laboratory investigations in the Chesapeake Bay for the past two decades. Many of these studies have been directed at identifying factors that control plant community distribution and abundance. Concomitant with field and laboratory investigations, ecosystem modeling studies were undertaken to simulate both long and short term response of eelgrass communities to variability in environmental factors; especially submarine irradiance and factors related to irradiance. Two models were evaluated for these studies. A deterministic model that used fixed parameter values or continuous functions to simulate submarine irradiance and a stochastic model that simulated natural (measured) variability in submarine irradiance due to variable solar radiation, water column light attenuation (kd), and water depth (tides) on an hourly time scale. In this paper, we present the results of these model studies and discuss the relative importance of natural variability in structuring eelgrass communities of the lower Chesapeake Bay region.

KEY WORDS: Macrophytes, Zostera marina</>, Chesapeake Bay, Modeling