Development reduces the amount of secondary biological production in coastal estuaries. However, the magnitude of this reduction remains largely unknown. We are not aware of studies that have quantified lost secondary biological production in estuaries as a result of interdecadal coastal development of salt‐marsh habitats. Our objective was to demonstrate a technique that combined historical imagery, GIS, and secondary production estimates to quantify the magnitude of lost areal production arising from the development of tidal creeks. We estimated lost production of a dominant salt‐marsh fish Mummichog Fundulus heteroclitus in Spooners and Pelletier creeks, two second‐order tidal systems in coastal North Carolina. We georeferenced historical (1939) aerial imagery, digitized low‐tide and high‐tide features in historical and contemporary (2019) imagery, and compared the intertidal vegetated area of each creek between periods. The lost intertidal area was then multiplied by creek‐specific published rates of areal production of larval and juvenile age‐0 Mummichog in salt‐marsh cordgrass Spartina alterniflora habitats. There was a loss of intertidal area and intertidal/subtidal vegetated edge of 72% and 54%, respectively, in Spooners Creek, and 47% and 4%, respectively, in Pelletier Creek. Losses of intertidal area over the last ~80 years translated into estimated annual losses of 44 and 8 kg of dry weight production (~695,000 and 186,500 individuals) for a single cohort in Spooners and Pelletier creeks, respectively. These estimates represent minimum losses, as some in‐stream development was already visible in the historic imagery and a single cohort’s production was used (not multiple cohorts). We encourage other researchers to use historic imagery to determine changes in aquatic habitats and link losses (or gains) in these habitats to the productivity metrics of important fishes.

中文翻译：

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将盐沼覆盖率的历史变化与Nektonic生物指示剂生产损失联系起来

发展减少了沿海河口的二次生物产量。但是，这种减少的程度仍然未知。我们还没有发现对盐沼生境年代际沿海发展造成的河口次生生物产量的损失进行量化的研究。我们的目标是演示一种结合历史图像，GIS和二次生产估算的技术，以量化因潮汐小溪的发展而造成的面积损失的数量。我们估计了主要盐沼鱼Mummichog底栖杂种鱼的产量下降在Spooners和Pelletier小河中，是北卡罗来纳州沿海地区的两个二级潮汐系统。我们对历史（1939年）航空影像进行了地理参考，对历史和当代（2019年）影像中的低潮和高潮特征进行了数字化处理，并比较了各个小溪在时段之间的潮间带植被面积。然后，将潮间带的损失面积乘以小溪特定的盐沼脐带草互花米草的幼体和0岁至0岁幼体的面积产发率。栖息地。Spooners Creek的潮间带面积损失和潮间带/潮间带植被边缘损失分别为72％和54％，而Pelletier Creek则分别为47％和4％。在过去的约80年中，潮间带面积的损失转化为Spooners和Pelletier小河的单个队列的估计年度损失分别为44和8 kg干重产量（〜695,000和186,500个人）。这些估计值代表了最小的损失，因为在历史图像中已经可以看到一些流内开发，并且使用了单个队列的产品（而不是多个队列）。我们鼓励其他研究人员使用历史图像来确定水生生境的变化，并将这些生境中的损失（或收益）与重要鱼类的生产力指标联系起来。