| Coastal fish populations settle more or less frequently, at various stages, estuarine systems. Tidal marshes are one of the components of these mosaics of habitats. The first part of this work describes fish assemblages through the utilisation of these systems by fishes analysed in order to propose a revised functional classification of ecological guilds. T h i s new classification is used to compare fish communities of four estuarine systems in the western coast of France: the Mont Saint- Michel Bay, the Saint-Brieuc Bay, the Loire estuary and the Aiguillon Bay. The second part aims at characterizing the nursery function as defined by Beck et al. (2001). Acombinative approach based on gut content analysis, and stable isotope analysis shows that Yo Y s e a... |
