Abstract
Urban land-use has been shown to impact aquatic environments however not much is known about the effects of low to medium density residential development. Fish and associated habitat were sampled along 23 salt marshes (dominated by Juncus roemerianus) across three urban and three reference tidal creeks of Alabama and west-Florida. Reference creeks had very little surrounding development while urban creeks were surrounded by residential neighborhoods typical for the region. Fish were sampled seasonally for one year along the marsh-water edge using baited minnow traps. Tidal creeks and marsh edges were also surveyed for various environmental attributes including: marsh species composition, stem density and biomass, sediment contaminants, marsh slope, salinity, and water temperature. Urban creeks showed evidence of longer freshwater conditions and greater salinity fluctuation. Total fish abundance and biomass were significantly lower in urban marshes (10.1 ± 1.3 fish trap−1 and 34.8 ± 5.1 g trap−1) compared to reference marshes (14.3 ± 1.8 fish trap−1 and 77.4 ± 10.0 g trap−1). Based on nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS), urban and reference fish assemblages were clearly clustered and correlated with salinity, marsh slope and sediment Cd concentration. These results suggest that marshes in urban-residential tidal creeks may support modified habitats compared to undeveloped creeks.
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