Marine coastal ecosystem
wildland-ocean interface
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area. Marine coastal ecosystems include many very different types of marine habitats, each with their own characteristics and species composition. They are characterized by high levels of biodiversity and productivity.
For example, estuaries are areas where freshwater rivers meet the saltwater of the ocean, creating an environment that is home to a wide variety of species, including fish, shellfish, and birds. Salt marshes are coastal wetlands which thrive on low-energy shorelines in temperate and high-latitude areas, populated with salt-tolerant plants such as cordgrass and marsh elder that provide important nursery areas for many species of fish and shellfish. Mangrove forests survive in the intertidal zones of tropical or subtropical coasts, populated by salt-tolerant trees that protect habitat for many marine species, including crabs, shrimp, and fish.
Further examples are coral reefs and seagrass meadows, which are both found in warm, shallow coastal waters. Coral reefs thrive in nutrient-poor waters on high-energy shorelines that are agitated by waves.
“Marine coastal ecosystem” enters the record as wildland-ocean interface. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Marine, coastal and ecosystem can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Marine coastal ecosystem” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Marine, coastal and ecosystem provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q109534959. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marine coastal ecosystem” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.