A check list of the biota of lower Chesapeake Bay : with inclusions from the upper bay and the Virginian Sea

The biota of Chesapeake Bay seems generally less known than that of New England and much of our West Coast. The present work attempts to mollify this discrepancy. The compilation has been revised and expanded to include plants and vertebrates. Inclusion of creatures not strictly aquatic but which may occasionally found their areas flooded by tidal waters has necessitated subjective declsions of limitation. Includes: Lower Plants Wetland and Dune Plants Phylum Protozoa Free-living Invertebrates (except Protozoa) Fishes of Chesapeake Bay and the Adjacent Coastal Plain Herptiles of the Maryland and Virginia Coastal Plain Birds Dependent on Open Water or Wetlands Mammals of Water, Wetlands, and Barrier Island

Check list of the marine invertebrates of Virginia

This list is the third revision of a preliminary list compiled by Dr. Willis G. Hewatt in 1959. This latest revision has been shortened by the deletion of most oceanic species. Conversely, a number of estuarine species have been added through further work. Those species known from the published work of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, Solomons Island, Maryland, have been included. For several groups the list should be quite complete; for others, such as the amphipods, of which there are 21 unidentified species in the VIMS collection, much taxonomic work remains. Since many species have been identified only by the compiler, a few errors may be present. Numerous literature references deemed pertinent have been added, with some annotations. While the taxonomic study of macroinvertebrates in the Chesapeake estuary seems near completion, the compilation of ecological and life history information appears only to have reached a threshold of understanding. Most of such information included herein should be reg-arded as general and subject to revision as intensive studies are made

Effect of Tropical Storm Agnes on setting of shipworms at Gloucester Point, Virginia

Surveillance of shipworm infestation at Gloucester Point, Va., began in 1958. Borer attack by Bankia gouldi occurred in July to early October each year until the passage of Agnes greatly reduced setting. Populations returned to near normal in 1975. Salinity was shown to vary with watershed rainfall.https://scholarworks.wm.edu/vimsbooks/1077/thumbnail.jp

Marine Invertebrates

Virginia and Maryland are favored with the largest estuary in the United States-the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay is 289 kilometers (173 miles) long and 47.6 kilometers (28.6 miles) wide near Smith Point. The estuary is relatively shallow, with an average depth of 8.05 meters (26.4 feet) and a maximum depth of 53 meters (174 feet) at Blood Point Light in Maryland. The greatest depth in Virginia is near Smith Point: 44 meters (144 feet) (Wolman, 1968). While this deep hole has probably never been sampled for benthos, many rare species have been collected in an area just south of Smith Point (Figure 1).https://scholarworks.wm.edu/vimsbooks/1027/thumbnail.jp

Water Quality Criteria and the Biota of Chesapeake Bay

Section 1: Ecological Concepts and Environmental Factors Affecting Chesapeake Bay. Section 2: Summaries of the Biology of the most Significant Bay Organisms. Section 3: Chesapeake Bay Communities: General Ecological Descriptions and Selection of Several Communities for more Detailed Study. Section 4: Water Quality Standards and Criteria Pertinent to the Chesapeake Bay. Section 5: Applicability of the Chesapeake Bay Hydralic Model for Biological Problems

Chaetognatha from the Florida Current and Coastal Water of the Southeastern Atlantic States

This paper reports the Chaetognatha in plankton samples collected in the waters off the coast of the southeastern Atlantic States during nine cruises of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service\u27s M/V Theodore N. Gill. From a total of 590 samples examined 12 species representing 3 genera are identified. The results show the distribution of chaetognaths to be very uniform paralleling the coast in a north-south direction. There are no apparent seasonal changes in the distribution of the species. Across the continental shelf and Florida Current they decreased noticeably in abundance. The inshore stations usually have two to five times as many individuals per cubic meter as do the stations in the Florida Current. Three kinds of water are identifiable in the area, Carolinian Coastal, Florida Current and Sargasso Sea water. Sagitta hispida has its highest percentage of incidence in Carolinian Coastal water. S. hexaptera, S. lyra, and Krohnitta subtilis occur in more than 90 per cent of the samples from the Florida Current; their presence in Coastal water probably indicates recent incursions of Florida Current water. Of the remaining eight species S. helenae and S. tenuis are characteristically coastal forms that appear frequently in the edge of the Florida Current. The other six species live principally in the Florida Current in this area but often appear in Coastal water. Over a long period of time development of tolerance to varied conditions probably explains the lack of sharply defined distributional limits of most species in the area

The distribution and ecology of the Gammaridea (Crustacea : Amphipoda) of the lower Chesapeake estuaries

Gammarid amphipods of three tidal rivers entering Chesapeake Bay were studied for ten months, particularly in the York River where 40 species were record during the period. Several species moved up or down the rivers with changing salinity. The more abundant species had longer breeding seasons. The number of described species from lower Chesapeake Bay is now 42 and the presence of 10 undescribed species and of several which bracket the region indicates that much remains to be learned about amphipods in the Bay. Nineteen of these have a boreal affinity and seven are limited to the Virginian subprovince. A reference to the most recent significant work on each species is given and a key is included as an appendix

Frequencies of infaunal invertebrates related to water content of Chesapeake Bay sediments

The following relationship was investigated for a total of 44 stations, using sequential (linear) multiregression analysis: A = f (D, S a , S., C, M , S , W) where A = the frequency of an infauna! invertebrate species, D : water depth at the station, Sa = per cent sand, Si =percent silt, C = per cent clay, Mz = mean grain size, S o = sediment Sorting Coefficient, and W = water content. Three animals were chosen for the dependent variable: Ensis directus, Nephtys incisa, and Retusa canaliculata. Results of the least-squares search procedure indicate that if the water content is carefully determined this variable always appears as one of the most important, when the independent variables are considered in combinations of two or three at a time. The implication is that water content, a mass property of the sediment that reflects the interrelationships of mean grain size, sorting, grain packing, and mineralogy, is a highly useful environmental variable that should be measured in studies that attempt to establish animal-sediment relationships

Northward range extension of Cyclinella tenuis Recluz

The venerid bivalve, C. tenuis, was described by Recluz (1852. Jour. de Conch., 3: 250) from Baie de la Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe in the Lesser Antilles. The northernmost occurrence of C. tenuis was reported as Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, by Dall (1889. U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull. 37, p. 56) and Johnson (1934. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 40: 48). (...