A Comparison of Trophic Support of Grass Shrimp (Palaemonetes pugio) in living shoreline and natural fringing tidal marshes 

Elise Turrietta ’20

 

As omnivores, grass shrimp are thought to feed on small bits of plant and animal material in tidal marshes and find protection from predators amongst the stems of grasses growing there.  Because living shoreline marshes are created and recently planted with grasses, I hypothesized that habitat support for shrimp would not be fully developed in living shoreline marshes, relative to fully established, natural marshes.  We did not, however, find any demographic measure to support my hypothesis.  Instead, it appears that living shoreline marshes quickly establish trophic and overall habitat support for shrimp, as the number of gravid females, egg production, and egg quality were similar between living shoreline and natural marsh types.