Living Resources
Long Island’s South Shore estuary is a dynamic ecosystem. The tidal marshes, mud and sand flats, underwater plant beds and broad shallows of this estuarine environment support microscopic plants and animals, which in turn support the finfish, shellfish, waterfowl, and other wildlife that typify the estuary. The character of the Reserve has changed over the last century with a decrease in abundant, productive, and diverse living resources to exhibiting a decline in ecosystem maturity, a loss of top keystone predators, a decline in migratory species, and an increasing dominance of low trophic level organisms. This long-term shift in ecosystem structure and energy flow is likely a result of both natural and anthropogenic stressors including commercial and recreational overharvest, inlet modification, rising water temperatures, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms and loss and degradation of habitat.
Living resource issues addressed in the CMP include:
- Deterioration of Wetlands
- Deterioration of Tributary Systems
- Deterioration of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation
- Habitat Degradation and Population Decline of Molluscan Shellfish and Crustaceans
- Habitat Degradation and Population Decline of Horseshoe Crabs
- Habitat Degradation and Population Decline of Finfish
- Habitat Degradation, Segmentation and Population Decline of Birds
- Habitat Degradation, Segmentation and Population Decline of Aquatic Turtles
- Habitat Use and Recovery of Seals
- Invasive Species