Inundated salt marshes are valued as nekton habitat due to their low predator and high prey abundance. But habitat quality depends also on abiotic properties. We measured hydrological (temperature, oxygen concentration) and hydrodynamic (flow velocity, turbidity, sediment grain size) parameters in four German salt-marsh creeks and compared these with the adjacent tidal flat and subtidal area. Water temperatures in the salt-marsh creeks varied with season, daytime and over the tides. In contrast to deeper subtidal areas, the small water body in the marsh creeks adapted rapidly to air temperatures, resulting in relatively cool water temperatures in winter and relatively warm temperatures in summer. Despite high summer temperatures, the oxygen concentration in the creeks remained year round within the tolerance range of most fishes and crustaceans (above 5 mg/L), probably due to tidal mixing and primary production. Furthermore, the water body in the salt-marsh creeks was sheltered by the vegetated marsh surface from wind and waves and thus characterized by low flow velocities (0.15 ms⁻¹), as well as lower turbidity and finer sediments than in the subtidal. As the specific set of habitat characteristics in the marsh creeks could explain utilization of this habitat by nekton, we performed a constrained redundancy analysis including temperature and turbidity as explanatory variables. Turbidity explained almost 21% of the variation in nekton species occurrence, while temperature accounted for only 2% of the variation. Compared to larger animals, small-sized nekton, which dominated the salt-marsh nekton community, is more capable to deal with extreme temperatures and will profit more from reduced currents than larger animals. Despite the limited accessibility for aquatic organism, intertidal salt-marsh creeks appear to provide favourable habitat for small nekton due to increased growth potential during seasonally higher temperatures, reduced swimming effort, and increased prey visibility and availability in the muddy sediments.

被淹没的盐沼由于捕食者少而猎物丰富，因此被认为是 nekton 栖息地。但栖息地质量也取决于非生物特性。我们测量了四个德国盐沼小溪的水文（温度、氧气浓度）和水动力（流速、浊度、沉积物粒度）参数，并将这些参数与相邻的潮滩和潮下带进行了比较。盐沼小溪的水温随季节、白天和潮汐而变化。与较深的潮下带相反，沼泽小溪中的小水体对气温的适应很快，导致冬季水温相对凉爽，夏季水温相对温暖。尽管夏季高温，小溪中的氧气浓度常年保持在大多数鱼类和甲壳类动物的耐受范围内（高于 5 毫克/升），这可能是由于潮汐混合和初级生产。此外，盐沼小溪中的水体被植被沼泽表面遮挡，不受风浪影响，因此具有低流速（0.15 ms⁻¹)，以及比潮下带更低的浊度和更细的沉积物。由于沼泽小溪中一组特定的栖息地特征可以解释 nekton 对这个栖息地的利用，我们进行了约束冗余分析，包括温度和浊度作为解释变量。浊度解释了近 21% 的游泳物种出现的变化，而温度仅解释了 2% 的变化。与较大的动物相比，在盐沼海藻群落中占主导地位的小型海藻更能应对极端温度，并且比大型动物能从减少的水流中获益更多。尽管水生生物的可及性有限，但潮间带盐沼小溪似乎为小海藻提供了有利的栖息地，因为在季节性较高的温度下生长潜力增加，