Located in the center of the San Francisco Estuary, Suisun Marsh is an ecological hotspot in the intermediate zone between the freshwater Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and salty San Francisco Bay. The Suisun Marsh landscape looks wildly different today compared to its historic past. In 1850, U.S. Congress passed the Swamp Land Act, which handed federal wetlands to states to encourage rapid reclamation for agriculture. … However, agriculture succumbed to high salinity and, over time, was converted into seasonally managed wetlands for waterfowl habitat and recreational hunting. Now, managed wetlands comprise about 70% of Suisun Marsh and include both public and private lands mainly managed for waterfowl habitat. … The flood schedule of these wetlands plays a large role in how much and what kind of life thrives in each of these systems. This intermittent seasonal connectivity provides opportunities to concentrate and then export plankton-rich water to adjacent sloughs.