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Virginia's Waterways:
Virginia's coastal zone is composed of many different but highly interrelated ecological systems. Below
the low tide limits are found the vast areas of submerged bottomland which are vitally important as fish
and shellfish feeding, spawning and nursery habitat. These areas not only help support Virginia's highly
valuable commercial catch but also the myriad of species which the average Virginian never directly
encounters but nevertheless are as important ecologically as the commercially sought organisms.
Between the high water line and the low water line are found the nonvegetated intertidal flats and beaches.
These areas, though uncovered and seemingly devoid of life during a portion of each tidal cycle,
provide important habitat for a host of different marine organisms, aquatic birds and many mammals.
Beginning approximately at the elevation we call "mean sea level" are found the various vegetated communities
known as marshes. Best known for their high plant production on the order of tons per acre per year, the
marshes have other valuable functions. They are a buffer between the estuary and the upland; interacting with both.
Virginia's tidal waterways have a wide variety of vegetation. These include saltmeadow hay, saltgrass, sea lavender,
saltmarsh cordgrass, black needlerush, marsh elder, groundsel tree, saltwort, sea oxeye, wax myrtle,
broadleaf cattail, sedges, bulrushes, arrow arum, pickerel week, smartweed, ferns, pond lily, switch
grass, saltbushes, waterdock, wildrice beggar's tick, rice cutgrass, threesquares. The organisms
living in and around this vegetation is equally as diverse. They include mole crabs, donax clam, haustorid
amphopods, oligochaete worms, beach fleas, ghost crabs, raxor clams, polychaete worms, sandworms, bloodworms,
amphipods, soft clams, mollusks, phoronid worms, hard clams, parchment worms, mud snails, oysters,
mud crabs, curved mussels, barnacles, sponges, and hydroids.
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