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

Authors

• Chesapeake Bay Program

Description

The coupled water quality-sediment diagensis model for the Chesapeake Bay has been enhanced with the addition of the dynamically-computed benthic biomass. The benthos was divided into two functional components, deposit-feeding polychaetes and suspension-feeding bivalves. An empirical relationship was derived based on monitoring data for the dominant species inhabiting the major salinity regimes of the Chesapeake Bay that related modeled areal biomass to characteristic individual size, so that filtration and respiration rates vary dynamically over time and space.