Meeting Abstract
Inland salt marshes are an extremely rare habitat type in North America, formed when groundwater seeps through glacial salt deposits to influence the surface community. In the midwestern United States, most salt marshes have been heavily degraded and exploited. The plant communities in one relatively intact salt marsh in Michigan have been studied, but the invertebrates are largely unknown. Preliminary work comparing this salt marsh to a freshwater marsh in Michigan showed that the salt marsh has lower richness and diversity in both sediment and water communities, as predicted given that the salt marsh is a more stressful environment. However, the patterns of these variables within the marsh (along both spatial and temporal gradients) is unknown. We used metabarcoding and traditional morphology to identify the invertebrates in the marsh. We also tested the idea that diversity and composition should change with stress by measuring the change in these variables along a transect of higher to lower salinity. Seasonal variation of physical characteristics of the marsh (e.g. water level, salinity) is also strong, and the effects of seasonal change on the composition and diversity of invertebrate communities was examined.
