Enter your Name:   Enter your E-mail Address:  Define the following terms: 01a. Estuary 01b. Euryhaline 01c. Stenohaline 01d. Brackish 01e. Wetlands 01f. Mudflats 01g. Meiofauna 01h. Channels 02. What caused the ocean levels of the world to rise enough to formmost of the world's estuaries? 03. What is the most common substrate of an estuary? Why? 04. Why does an estuary have fluctuating salinity levels? 05. The figure below is a side-on view of a hypothetical estuary. Starting at the three X's in the figure, explain what delineates the salinity levels marked in the figure. 06. A scientist is studying an estuary in the Southern Hemisphere. If he is floating on a boat in the ocean and looking toward the shore, which side of the river will have the lowest salinity near the ocean? 07. A species of clam is found only in a narrow area of the center of an estuary. Is it most likely eurhaline, stenohaline, or a brackish species? Why: 08. Are salt marshes found in temperate or tropical climates? 09. What do the pneumatophores of black mangroves provide for the plants? 10. You are lost in a mangrove forest. If you are surrounded by white mangrove trees, are you at a relatively low, medium, or high elevation? 11. Why do some types of bacteria do well in the mudflats? 12. Explain why there are very few macroscopic species living on the surface of mudflats. 13. What is the relationship between the length of shorebirds' bills and the buried depths of estuarine organisms? 14. Why are channels ideal as nurseries for fishes? 15. As a rule, do estuaries provide less, just enough, or more organic material than needed for the organisms living there? If they do not provide enough, where do they get the rest, and if they provide too much, where does the excess go?