Development of a Suspension Feeding and Deposit Feeding Benthos Model for Chesapeake Bay

摘要

During the period 1992-1993, final evaluation, summarization, and conclusions were being made from the previous phase of eutrophication modeling in Chesapeake Bay (e.g., Cerco and Cole, 1993; Thomann et al., 1994). During the summer of 1993, three workshops were held to determine the future direction of Chesapeake Bay modeling (HydroQual, 1993). One workshop, 'Living Resource Processes and Ecosystem Modeling,' was devoted to the exploration of the linkages between eutrophication and living resources, and modeling paradigms which would enable simulation of such linkages. Increasingly, estuaries are being examined not only from a water quality perspective, but also from the point of view of habitat and living resource quality. Until recently, management-oriented simulation models addressed only the eutrophication aspect. With this latest phase of Chesapeake Bay modeling, important connections to living resources have been included. These are (1) benthic algae, (2) submersed aquatic vegetation (SAV), (3) zooplankton, and (4) benthos. This report describes the new submodels for two classes of benthos: deposit feeding polychaete worms and suspension feeding bivalve mollusks.