. The ecology of delta marshes of coastal Louisiana : a community profile . Figure 67. The life cycle of the brown shrimp (Gosselink 1980), larger, deeper water bodies which they appear to use as "staging areas" for emigration. These anigrations occur primarily at night and are keyed to the phase of the lunar tidal cycle, with greatest movement during periods of high- est tides (Blackmon 1974). In the Mississippi Delta there appear to be no fish species that spawn in fresh water and move to the ocean as they mature. But in other locations these species make extensive use of the marsh
. The ecology of delta marshes of coastal Louisiana : a community profile . Figure 67. The life cycle of the brown shrimp (Gosselink 1980), larger, deeper water bodies which they appear to use as "staging areas" for emigration. These anigrations occur primarily at night and are keyed to the phase of the lunar tidal cycle, with greatest movement during periods of high- est tides (Blackmon 1974). In the Mississippi Delta there appear to be no fish species that spawn in fresh water and move to the ocean as they mature. But in other locations these species make extensive use of the marshes through which they pass on these migra- tions. A different kind of migratory use of marshes is that of numerous bird species which move daily in and out of the marshes to feed. Wading birds, for example, may nest in adjacent upland areas and along beach rims but feed along the marsh edges and in marsh ponds during the day. Their daily travels may cover many miles. One manber of this group, the white ibis, has been reported to travel as much as 80 km from its nesting site to feed (Lowery 1960). In a similar vein,Tamasier (1976) found wintering green-winged teal and pintail resting during the day on large. shallow ponds. The birds then spread out to forage elsewhere at night. Deer and other mammals may also venture out into marshes to forage from upland resting areas (Schitoskey and Linder 1979). Intercontinental Couplings The most dramatic inter-ecosystem couplings are those of the migratory birds that link Canadian and Alaskan pothole wetlands to gulf coast marshes. The Mississippi delta wetlands are at the southern extreme of the major duck and goose migration corridors (Figure 68). Many songbird species winter further south and are found moving through the delta marshes only during fall and spring migra- tions. As mentioned earlier, we have wery poor information about the importance of winter-habitat quality of birds that nest in the far north, but all indications are that
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