Global Climate Change Impacts on the Vegetation and Fauna of Mangrove Forested Ecosystems in Florida (FCE): Nekton Mass from March 2000 to April 2004

Bottomless lift nets are buried within the mangrove forest floor and raised remotely on slack high spring tides to enclose a 6m2 area. As the tide ebbs, fishes retreat into a subtidal refuge cleared when the tide has fallen. Three replicate nets have been sampled at 3 locations along a salinity gradient on Shark River for 4 years. Small resident forage fish and grass shrimp dominate the collections. Exotic species and estuarine transient species that use the estuary as a nursery are rare within the assemblage of fishes that routinely use the flooded forest.