Glossary
- Amphipod—A crustacean of the order
Amphipoda, including the sand fleas and beach hoppers. There are 3,000 species
of amphipods.
- Anadromous—Moving from seawater into fresh water
to spawn, as salmon or striped
bass.
- Arthropod—Invertebrate animals belonging to the phylum
Arthropoda, with jointed legs, a segmented body, and an exoskeleton. Arthropods
include insects, crustaceans, and arachnids.
- Bivalve—Mollusks belonging
to the class Bivalvia, with two-part hinged shells, including mussels and clams.
- Benthos—Collectively,
those plants and animals, usually invertebrates, living on or near the bottom
of the bay or ocean (benthic, adj.).
- Biomass—The quantity of living
organisms in a particular area.
- Bog—A wetland characterized by
acidic peat soil formed from decaying mosses.
- Brackish—Salty, but
less so than seawater.
- Bryozoan—Any member of the phylum Bryozoa,
which consists of tiny moss-like water animals that live in colonies.
- Crustaceans—Arthropods
that live in the water and breathe by gills, such as lobsters, barnacles, crabs,
and shrimps.
- Copepod—A small, sometimes parasitic, crustacean belonging
to the class Copepoda.
- Detritus—Decomposed plant and animal matter
that has been worked to sediment size through the action of water and sand.
- Diatoms—One-celled
algae with cell walls of silica. Diatoms make up the first links in the aquatic
food chain.
- Ecosystem—A biological community existing in a specific
physical environment.
- Emergent—A plant that grows directly in the
water and stays erect to emerge from the water surface, regardless of the water
level.
- Estuary—A partially enclosed area where the fresh water
of rivers mixes with tidal salt water.
- Euryhaline—Able to live
in waters with a wide variation in salinity.
- Exoskeleton—An external
skeleton, such as the shell of a mollusk or arthropod.
- Habitat—Where
an animal or plant lives; its natural home.
- Hummock—A rise of fertile,
densely wooded land that is higher than a surrounding marsh.
- Inlet—An
opening through which ocean waters enter and leave an enclosed body of water,
such as a sound, bay, or marsh.
- Intertidal zone—The zone along
the shore between high and low tide marks.
- Littoral—Pertaining
to the seashore, especially the intertidal area.
- Marsh—Low, wet
land that is covered by water at least part of the time and supports grasses rather
than trees.
- Neap tide—Lowest range of the tide, occurring at the
first and last quarter of the moon.
- Pelagic—Pertaining to the open
waters of the ocean, as distinguished from the benthic regions.
- Phytoplankton—Plant
plankton.
- Plankton—Aquatic plant life that floats at the mercy
of the currents or has limited swimming abilities.
- SAV—The commonly
used acronym for submerged aquatic vegetation.
- Sessile—Attached
permanently, immobile.
- Spring tide—Tide of maximum range, occurring
at the new and full moon.
- Stenohaline—Able to live only in waters
with little variation in salinity.
- Substrate—The foundation that
lies beneath and supports an organism.
- Swamp—Spongy or boggy ground
that is covered with water at least part of the time and supports the growth of
shrubs and trees.
- Thigmotropic—Pertaining to the orientation some
living things have toward objects, such as the orientation many fish have toward
rocks, reefs, sunken ships, and other structure.
- Zooplankton—Animal
plankton.
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