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Salt Marsh Wildlife Habitat
We developed an assessment model to quantify the wildlife habitat value of New England salt marshes based on marsh characteristics and the presence of habitat types that influence habitat use by terrestrial wildlife. Our model consists is an office-based assessment in which aerial photographs are used to generate data on eight landscape and morphological assessment components:
- size class of the marsh,
- marsh morphology,
- marsh habitat types,
- extent of anthropogenic modification,
- vegetation,
- vegetative heterogeneity,
- surrounding land cover and land use and
- connectivity and associated habitats in the landscape surrounding the marsh.
Data on the extent of the various habitat types and marsh attributes are then used to generate a numerical score for each of eight components, which are summed to arrive at an overall relative wildlife habitat assessment score for the marsh. Our assessment can provide information to aid in prioritizing marshes for protection and restoration, identify marshes that may harbor significant biodiversity, or help monitor changes in habitat value over time.
At a minimum, aerial photographs showing each salt marsh to be assessed and the surrounding landscape at least 1km around each site are required to carry out an assessment. Digital land use and land cover in a GIS will aid in determining surrounding land use and associated habitats. Guidelines for the assessment components, as well as background information on their development and relevance to salt marsh wildlife, are described in McKinney and Wigand (2006). Office-based aerial photo delineation to assess habitat type, vegetative structure, and vegetative heterogeneity should, if possible, be supplemented with field assessment. Detailed protocols for landscape assessments, field assessments, and calculating ranking scores are contained in the document “Salt Marsh Wildlife Habitat Assessment Protocol”, available as a link on this page. Also available is a companion spreadsheet for calculating assessment scores.
Salt Marsh Wildlife Habitat Assessment Protocol (14 pp, 41 KB, About PDF)
Salt Marsh Wildlife Habitat Value Assessment (60 KB, XLS)
Some peer-reviewed references related to the project (see complete list and pdf files on AED Wetlands Publications page):
McKinney, R.A., and Wigand, C. 2006. A framework for the assessment of the wildlife habitat value of New England salt marshes. EPA/600/R-06/132. Office of Research and Development. Washington, DC 20460.
McKinney, R.A., Charpentier, M.A., and Wigand, C. Assessing the wildlife habitat value of New England salt marshes: I. Model and application. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, in review.
McKinney, R.A., Charpentier, M.A., and Wigand, C. Assessing the wildlife habitat value of New England salt marshes: II. Model testing and validation. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, in review.