Otter Island
From Salish Sea Wiki
- Admiralty Inlet
- Comox Coast
- Discovery Islands
- East Sound
- Fraser Lowlands
- Gulf Islands
- Hood Canal
- Qualicum Coast
- San Juan Islands
- South Puget Sound
- South Vancouver Island
- Squamish
- Strait of Juan de Fuca
- Sunshine Coast
- West Sound
- Whidbey Basin
- Salish Sea References
- Wiki Rules
- Wiki text does not reflect the policy or opinion of any agency or organization
- Please adhere to our Social Contract and Style Guide
- Complain here, and be nice.
Otter Island is among the best freshwater tidal swamp reference sites in the in the Snohomish Estuary. There is no evidence of it being diked, cleared or grazed. It has mature spruce swamp.
Notes[edit]
- There is one main channel that penetrates the center of the island, surrounded by a Picea overstory, and Lonicera-Rosa understory.
- Beaver have dug channels that convey tidal water, consume shrub stems, and build dams in the blind tidal channels.
- The estuarine plane has a large quantity of buried wood observable in the channel walls and in the swamp.
- This is similar to Hood 2007 wood and skagit delta shrub swamp that observed wood plant recruitment on logs in tidal marsh.
- Because estuarine sediment deposition decreases as frequency and depth of flood inundation decreases, this suggests that wood may provide the platform for a site to shift from marsh elevations to swamp elevations.
