Competition among marsh macrophytes by means of geomorphological displacement in the intertidal zone

Abstract

Competitive interactions among marsh plant species are mediated by the influence of the vegetation on sediment accretion and modifications of the relative elevation of the marsh surface. A model described here demonstrates some of the feedbacks between physical processes like sediment accretion and biological processes such as those that determine species zonation patterns. Changes in geomorphology, primary productivity and the spatial distribution of plant species are explained by competitive interactions and by interactions among the tides, biomass density, and sediment accretion that regulate the elevation of intertidal wetlands toward an equilibrium with mean sea level (MSL). This equilibrium is affected positively (relative elevation of the marsh surface increases) by the biomass density of emergent, salt marsh macrophytes and negatively by the rate of sea-level rise (SLR). It was demonstrated that a dominant, invading species is able to modify its environment, raising the elevation of the habitat, to exclude competitively inferior species, a process I refer to as geomorphological displacement. However, the outcome depends on a number of variables including the rate of sea-level rise and the distributions of the species across the intertidal gradient. The model predicts that a marsh will evolve toward alternative stable states, depending on the rate of sea-level rise and the species' fundamental and realized distributions within the intertidal zone.