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30 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Define the estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. ( Mixing Zone of Fresh and Salt Water)
Identify SF Bay’s water sources
Sacramento, San Joaquin, Pacific Ocean
Understand tides (semi-diurnal).
Semidiurnal Tides is when there are two unequal high tides and two unequal low tides in about a 25 hour period. Caused by gravitational pull.
Residence Time
Residence time is the amount of time it takes for a discrete contaminant to leave a system. It affects the wildlife by causing the phytoplankton to bloom in the late spring or early summer. If the residence times are longer than the phytoplankton are abundant.a. The residence time in the South Bay is longer than the rest of the bay because the water is relatively stagnant which causes it more difficult for water molecules or dissolved contamination to flow out of the South Bay.
Salt – Water Prism
When Salt Water and Fresh Water meet making the salt water sub duct underneath the fresh water because it is denser
Entrapment Zone
The area between Fresh Water and Salt Water where small particles and organisms accumulate.
Tides
Spring Tides and have the greatest tidal range because the sun , moon, and earth are all aligned and the sun and moon reinforce each other. This is opposed to the Neap Tides when the gravitational pull from the sun and moon tend to cancel each other out.
Explain the causes and effects of eutrophication.
Eutrophication is a condition characterized by excessive blooms of phytoplankton whose decay and decomposition can deplete the oxygen in the water.There is excessive richness of nutrients killing the animal life and enriching the plant life causing a dense growth of it.
Describe life in the marshes, water, and on the bottom of the bay.
What are the significance of marshes and wetland (Habitats for different creatures and animals, Marshes are good nursery’s) Wetlands are good detoxifiers.
Explain the overall importance of phytoplankton
A phytoplankton is a microscopic drifting plant that is important food source for many of the Estuary’s animals. You can find it in the Northern Reach in the late spring, summer or fall and the south bay in the spring.
Describe the life cycle of anadromous fish, and give examples (of course!)
An Anadromous Fish spends their adult lives in salt water but move upstream into fresh water to spawn. Examples of Anadromous fish are salmon, striped bass, steelhead trout, American shad, and white and green sturgeon.
Introduced species
Some of the ways species are introduced to the Estuary are on purpose for food, for sports, the accidental transport of organisms through attachment to the sea hull, drifting in the ballast water and imported for stocking for aquaculture and bait.
Dredging
The effects dredging has on the Estuary is either through disturbance or relocation of containments. The organisms in the Estuary are disturbed by dredging from either their removal or buried by the disposal of sediments. It also causes the release of toxic contaminants that is hidden away inside the mud.
Dams
The Dams built on major tributaries stopped salmon and steelhead from getting to spawn grounds. The problem is even worse by water diversions that reduce water flow. The pumps that reverse the water flow interrupts the migratory process and remove and kill large numbers of plankton, eggs and young fish.
The Gold Rush
The Gold Rush played a major factor for the estuary because the gold miners used hydraulic mining. They would fire high-pressure streams of water from “ water cannons,” and would blast the halls apart. The hillsides were then flushed down the rivers and creeks. The Delta, because of its silt and deep peat soil have been used for planting grain, vegetables and orchards. Only 3% of the Delta hasn't been diked off and farmed. The Bay marshes and intertidal mudflats have been turned into salt ponds, cow pastures, and real estate.
WWII
Many shipyards were built in order to keep up with the demand for battleships for the war in the Pacific
The environmental movement
The series also highlights the story of three women who rallied an entire region to save San Francisco Bay from becoming little more than a river. Spearheaded by three women in the East Bay hills, the story of how the Bay was saved is not only compelling in its own right, but offers an invaluable lesson about how ordinary citizens can have an impact on protecting and enhancing our natural environment.
Estuarine Circulation
The tides move the water from the northern reach 2 to 6 miles up and downstream twice a day. This up and downstream tidal motion causes the downstream flow of freshwater surface layer to induce a slightly smaller upstream return current of saltier water near the bottom of the channels.
Life in the Water
a. The elimination of almost all of the Delta’s marshes changed the food/web pyramid by causing it to primarily base it on organic materials washed in from the rivers and on the phytoplankton growing within the Delta itself. It used to be that decaying reeds along with leaves dropped by the Willows, Alders and Cottonwoods that grew on the slough banks would provide a decomposed food source. Insects and larvae would also provide food for the Delta fis
Species Found in Marshes
a. Harvest Mouse, Shrew, Yellow Throat Song Bird, Song Sparrow, waterfowl, beavers, tundra swans, Sand hill cranes, California clapper rail
Limiting Factors in Marshes
The factors that limit where plants can grow in tidal marshes are length and frequency of flooding, saltiness of soil and competition from other plants.
Brackish Marshes
Within the Brackish marsh there is Saltier and Fresh.In Brackish marshes the zones are less distinct and are found in Suisun Bay, Petaluma, and Napa rivers north of San Pablo Bay.
Salt Marshes
In the Salt Marsh exotic plants have not invaded and is flat, salty, and water logged by cord grass. The water circulation is limited and the zones are clearest visibly.
Freshwater Marshes
The Freshwater marshes have been mostly destroyed but provide cover for juvenile fish, wading and water birds and river otters and muskrat.
What is Potamocorbula
a. A Potamocorbula is an brackish or marine Asian clam. The effect it has on the ecosystem is lowers the phytoplankton population, which eliminates blooms, in the brackish waters, it also consumes that larval copepods, and decreases the food supply of phytoplankton for the zooplankton.
Life on the Bottom of the Bay ( Hard Bottom Habitats)
• Outcrops of Natural Bedrock
• Artificial Objects/Structures
• Require Ability to Surface Cling or Crevice Hide
• Central Bay
• Riprap, Concrete seawalls piers and pilings
• Space is limited therefore organism pack together as tight as they can
• Life on Concrete Piling more constant because it is exposed to airs at low tide and a few animals can survive there.
Life on the Bottom of the Bay ( Soft Bottom Habitat)
• Muddy or Sandy Sediment sometimes with gravel and rocks
• Require ability to burrow
• tracks and bulges, pits and burrows, mud-tubes and feeding-holes
Organisms that live on the Bottom of the Bay (Hard Bottom)
• “Breadcrust” Sponges
• “Dead-Man’s fingers”
• Jellyfish
• Dark blue bay mussels, white barnacles and pale-green sheets of sea lettuce
Organisms that live on the Bottom of the Bay (Soft Bottom)
Mitten Crabs
Ghost Shrimp, Mud Shrimp, Innkeeper Worms
Lugworms
Mud Snails
Introduction of exotic species.
o The introduction of exotic species has altered the biotic landscape in the sense that the exotic species are replacing the native organisms.