Much has been written about the abundance of fishes in estuaries, and particularly the value of the littoral zone and associated macrophyte habitats as fish nursery areas. What has not been researched or discussed in the same amount of detail is that estuaries are demanding physico-chemical environments for fishes, yet each year millions of 0 + juveniles are recruited into these supposedly stressful nurseries. This review focuses on three primary variables; salinity, temperature and turbidity, and highlights the ability of estuary-associated fish species to withstand apparent extreme conditions associated with these physico-chemical drivers in order to benefit from the rich food resources and possible low predation rates present within most systems. However, there is increasing evidence that global change, including climate change, is resulting in these driving variables becoming more extreme, which will test even the most eurytopic estuarine species now and in the future.

关于河口鱼类丰富的报道很多，特别是沿海地区和相关大型植物栖息地作为鱼类育苗区的价值。尚未进行相同数量的研究或讨论的是，河口对鱼类的物理化学环境的要求很高，但每年有数以百万计的0 +幼鱼被招募到这些所谓的压力苗圃中。这篇综述着重于三个主要变量：盐度，温度和浊度，并强调了与河口相关的鱼类能够承受与这些物理化学驱动因素相关的明显极端条件的能力，以便从丰富的食物资源中受益，并且大多数系统中可能存在较低的捕食率。但是，越来越多的证据表明，包括气候变化在内的全球变化，