Tuesday 29 September 2015

[Maine-birds] Re: Scar Marsh-Pine Pt- tree swallows galore and a peregrine feast

Peter asks a good question. I've bumped into the "pans" versus "pannes" question with spell-checkers, which insidiously corral us toward "one" orthography. For example, is it salt marsh or saltmarsh? Both seem acceptable but don't ask your device. The origin and spelling of "pannes" may be old and its usage somewhat parochial. In the context of Scarborough marsh, where long used, and other salt marshes in New England, pannes are described as a key constituent at risk due to climate change--and how shorebirds know it! (See paper in Ecology Letters, below.) Whether one uses "pans" or "pannes," the latter is an important term to know.

Here is a neat NOAA illustration of where salt pannes occur in a salt marsh:
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/kits/estuaries/media/supp_estuar06a_saltmarsh.html

New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services describes the "pannes and pools" of a salt marsh:
http://des.nh.gov/organization/commissioner/pip/factsheets/cp/documents/cp-06.pdf

Maine Natural Areas Program uses "pannes" in the context of salt marshes:
http://www.maine.gov/dacf/mnap/features/communities/spartinasaltmarsh.htm


Lastly, uses in the scientific literature:

"In New England salt marshes, a guild of halophytic forbs occupies stressful, waterlogged pannes."
Ecology Letters, 2009 -- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01337.x/full

"Areas of high plant diversity, known as forb pannes, characterize many northern New England salt marshes"
Ecology, 2004 -- http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/02-0779

"Palynomorph assemblages from South Carolina salt marshes were analyzed from high marsh, low marsh, and salt panne zones."
Review of Palaeobotany & Palynology, 2008 -- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034666707001078


Louis Bevier
Fairfield

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