The Ecology of Tijuana Estuary, California: An Estuarine Profile

Table 19. Net aboveground productiv~ty and net
carban productivity fesltmated from plant carbon data
of 5/32 178) af salt marsh vascular plants (data are Per
m2 yr from Wtnlreld 1980)
0.8 ha area of the marsh. More stations were
added for the August sample (n = 56). then cut to
25 stations in 1977 At each station, plants were
clipped to ground level within 0.25-m2 circular
~uadrats.
Grams dry wt
Grdrrls carbon
Frequent sampling (Table 20) showed that there
were differences in the timing of peak standing
crop for each species. Pickleweed reached its
maximum in August, while cordgrass peaked in
July and again in September following fruit
production. The standing crop for all species
combined was at its minimum in March and
maximum in August of 1976 and 1977 (Figure 52).
Whole-marsh sampling was repeated in August of
1978, but efforts in later years were restricted to
the lower marsh (Table 21 1.
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ur~$tjv %O? 2?11 3H 72
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