Atlantic Coastal Plain Indian River Lagoon Tidal Marsh

These tidally influenced marshes of the Indian River Lagoon along Florida's Atlantic Coast represent approximately 10% of the salt marshes in Florida. Most of these are "high marshes" which are protected from direct exposure to the Atlantic Ocean by perched barrier islands, receiving natural inundation only from wind tides and seasonal sea level changes. A berm or levee generally separates these high marshes from lower fringing marshes of saltmarsh cordgrass (to the north) and red mangrove (to the south). Landward of this berm, salt flats may develop with pickleweed, saltgrass, seaside oxeye, saltwort, and seashore crowngrass. These species may occur in monospecific zones, or they may be mixed, grading into occasional black mangrove. These zones are followed by a black needlerush zone, and the most inland fringes may be dominated by sand cordgrass. These marshes were heavily altered by mosquito control impoundments of the 1950s and 1960s. For more information, see NatureServe Explorer.

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