Beneath The Surface

2021 winner of Non-fiction popular category: New Jersey Studies Academic Alliance

The Mullica Valley estuary and its watershed, formed over the last 10,000 years, are among the cleanest estuaries along the east coast of the United States. This 365,000-acre ecosystem benefits from a combination of protected watershed, low human population density, and general lack of extensive development. In Beneath the Surface, marine scientist Ken Able helps the reader penetrate the surface and gain insights into the kinds of habitats, animals, and plants that live there. Readers will gain a better understanding of the importance of these shallow waters; how the amount of salt in the water determines where animals and plants are found in estuaries; the day-night, seasonal, and annual variation in their occurrence; and how change is occurring as the result of climate variation. Throughout the book are insightful sidebars telling intimate stories of where various animals came from and where they are going as they travel through the estuary on their way to and from other portions of the east coast. Beneath the Surface emphasizes the kinds and importance of the animals and plants that live beneath the surface of this unique ecosystem.

KENNETH W. ABLE is a distinguished professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University and has been the director of the Rutgers University Marine Field Station (RUMFS) since 1987. He is the author of three previous books, two on the life history and ecology of estuarine fishes in the Mid-Atlantic region. He has lived in the Mullica River watershed for nearly thirty years, and can be in his kayak on the river in fifteen minutes and has taken that opportunity over the years, in all seasons.