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Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). Published here under license by The Resilience Alliance.

The following is the established format for referencing this article:
Fink, R. 2002. The unexpected result is not always a failure. Conservation Ecology 6(1): r3. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol6/iss1/resp3/

Response to Dawe et al 2000. "Marsh Creation in a Northern Pacific Estuary: Is Thirteen Years of Monitoring Vegetation Dynamics Enough?"

The Unexpected Result Is Not Always a Failure

Ron Fink


Global Fisheries Consultants Limited

Published: March 12, 2002


This seems to be an exceptional paper documenting a substantial effort on the part of many individuals and organizations. If I have any criticism at all, it is directed toward the assumption that the development of nonvegetated sink holes is necessarily a bad thing.

During some earlier work in collecting esturarine amphipods and isopods in the Squamish River esturary, I was struck by the very high concetration of these organisms in the many pools and hollows located throughout the middle marsh at low tide. These low areas developed in response to the presence of stumps and logs and smaller woody debris grounding in the vegetated shallows.

Because marshes are a complex association of both plant and animal species, if I were building one, I would try to incorporate just the type of areas that the authors felt needed to be drained. As long as they are stable and provide low-tide refuges for invertebrate species, can they be considered a failure in the process of artificial marsh creation ?


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LITERATURE CITED

Dawe, N. K., G. E. Bradfield, W. S. Boyd, D. E. C. Trethewey, and A. N. Zolbrod. 2000. Marsh creation in a northern Pacific estuary: Is thirteen years of monitoring vegetation dynamics enough? Conservation Ecology 4(2): 12. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/Journal/vol4/iss2/art12


Address of Correspondent:
Ron Fink
27 North Ingleton Avenue
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
13069 Marine Drive (Head Office)
White Rock, British Columbia V4A 1E5 Canada
Phone: 299-2746
ronfink@home.com



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