Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Research Document 2001/109.

Colin Levings and Glen Jamieson, Fisheries and Oceans Canada

A.  introduction

in this paper we provide an assessment of the fish habitat significance of a particularly ecotone  of the Marine and estuary in Shoreline in British Columbia-locations were aquatic habitat at higher tides merges into terrestrial habitat. An eco-tone is defined as a son of transition between adjacent ecological systems, having a set of characteristics  uniquely defined by time and space scales, And by the strength of the interactions between adjacent ecological systems. Ecotones at the edges of lakes, streams, and rivers are well described by ecologists and are called riparian zones the word riparian is derived from the Latin word for River and is strongly embedded in ecological, legal, and environmental planning literature the following is a working definition of riparian habitat, adopted by DFO and MOV and parks in a recent document (2000) with fish habitat protection and area adjacent to a stream that may be subject to temporary, frequent, or seasonal inundation and supports plant species that are typical of an area inundated or saturated soil conditions, and that are distinct from plant species on freely drained adjacent upland sites because of the presence of water

See this PDF for the full article: MarineRiparianHabitats(LevingsJamieson2001)