Characterization of Nursery Habitats used by Black Sea Bass and Summer Flounder in Chesapeake Bay and the Coastal Lagoons

Coastal habitats are increasingly impacted by intersecting and often competing human activities overlaid on habitat loss and degradation. These demands have prompted resource managers to implement marine spatial-planning strategies (Foley et al. 2010), but the effectiveness of this approach depends on the quality and resolution of the ecological information considered in delineating best uses of public natural resources. Many economically and ecologically important species such as summer flounder and black sea bass depend on inshore nursery habitats, yet habitat-specific utilization patterns lack the resolution needed to protect critical areas and inform ecological restoration strategies. To address these data gaps, we investigated dynamic and static features that shape nursery habitat use by juvenile summer flounder and black sea bass in the Chesapeake Bay region and nearby coastal lagoons. The ability to evaluate environmental effects on the distribution and abundance of juvenile fishes is critical because nursery habitats are dynamic, and anticipating these changes is key to the success of ecosystem-based management in the Chesapeake Bay region. Management of species requires not just characterization of suitable habitat, but also knowledge of the extent of habitats that support production of juvenile fishes, because these extents will change as the climate continues to warm and as precipitation amounts and patterns change in the watershed (Najjar et al. 2010)