Are Open Bays As Important As Salt Marshes for Brown Shrimp Nurseries in Louisiana?
If you were asked to identify the most important nursery habitat for juvenile brown shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico, your instant response would probably be “salt marsh.” This is a logical response, given the immense body of research supporting the importance of salt marsh as nursery grounds for a wide range of fish and crustacean species. However, new evidence indicates that open bays in Louisiana’s Barataria and Terrebone Bays may be equally important nurseries for brown shrimp. The results of seine and trawl surveys indicated that, while similar-sized shrimp density was approximately twice as high in salt marsh sites as open bay sites, the total number of shrimp in the open bays is likely greater than the marsh because the bays cover a much greater area. Isotopic analysis demonstrated that the shrimp found in the bays were, for the most part, bay residents (less than 10% came from marsh habitats) and had not migrated into the bays from nearby marshes. Open bays were estimated to suppor
