Halosere
A halosere is an ecological succession in a saline water saline environments. An example of a halosere is a salt marsh.
In a river estuary, large amounts of silt are deposited by the ebbing tides, as well as inflowing rivers.
Plants in halosere
The earliest plant colonizers are algae and zostera, which can tolerate submergence by the tide for most of the 12 hour cycle and which trap mud, causing it to accumulate.
Two other colonizer plants are Salicornia, and Spartina, which are both halophytes. Halophytes are plants that can tolerate saline conditions and they grow on the intertidal mudflats with a maximum of four hours' exposure to air every 12 hours. On a large scale halophytes have colonized the halosere on the banks of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.[1]
The initial tidal flats receive new sediments daily, are waterlogged to the exclusion of oxygen, and have a high pH value.
The sward zone, in contrast, is inhabited by plants that can only tolerate a maximum of four hours submergence every day (24 hours). The dominant species there are sea lavender and other numerous types of grass.
Hollows may remain where the seawater becomes trapped. After evaporation, saltpans may survive, because the salinity of the water is too high for plants. As the tide ebbs, water drains off the land and may concentrate into streams.
See also
References
- C.B. Osmond; O. Björkman; D.J. Anderson (2012). Physiological Processes in Plant Ecology: Toward a Synthesis with Atriplex. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 119. ISBN 9783642676376.
