The often shallow depths of these depressions coupled with the sporadic nature of precipitation in the desert can lead to the pools’ evaporation, making them an ephemeral wetland. Rare species such as Mabee’s salamanders and barking treefrogs call this habitat home. Rivers and streams pouring off of the continental shelf into the ocean must first pass through these flat, densely vegetated areas, allowing suspended sediment to settle out of the water and excess nutrients to be taken up by the wetland vegetation, protecting coastal marine species.

547). Carson City, NV: Berger, D. L., et al. The wetlands are equally valuable to avian species, providing a winter home to many migratory waterfowl on the Atlantic Flyway. (Sources: Smith, T. M., & Smith, R. L. (2009).

Many birds come here to feed on fish and invertebrates, including osprey and heron. What are resacas? It is a give and take relationship. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; USFWS “Okefenokee at a Glance,” http://www.fws.gov/okefenokee/Okefenokee%20at%20a%20Glance%20webpage.pdf; USFWS “Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,” http://www.fws.gov/okefenokee/; USFWS “Profiles: Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,” http://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/index.cfm?id=41590). Wetlands also help filter pollutants from stormwater and reduce flooding. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; USFWS “Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge” http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Patoka_River/). These high levels of productivity allow the bottomland hardwood forests to support a wide variety of wildlife – they are one of the last remaining habitats in Kentucky for migratory songbird populations, as well as a wide variety of freshwater mussels, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Hall, W.E. A wetland is an area where water covers the soil, or lies at or just below the surface, for all or parts of the year, including the growing season. Wetlands have many surprising benefits including improving water quality and reducing floods. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; Environmental Law Institute, “State Wetland Protection: Status, Trends, & Model Approaches. Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems. Today, Pennsylvania contains over 400,000 acres of wetlands. This proximity allows the wetlands to absorb and slow dangerous floodwaters before they reach nearby communities, helping to reduce damage to life and property. This landscape of different wetlands hosts a robustly biodiverse population of plants and animals, stratified by their relationship with the surrounding water. ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. In B. Wilbur (Ed. Click on the links below to learn more about wetlands in your state. This reduction in erosion can mean less land loss for property owners, as well as improved water quality downstream for fish and waterfowl. In B. Wilbur (Ed. Though these miniature wetlands, or potholes, can dry up completely with the extreme temperature changes of the seasons, they are an important source of water to many desert animals. Image:

San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; US Department of the Interior “Chapter 16: North Carolina—The Pocosins and Other Freshwater Wetlands” http://www.doi.gov/pmb/oepc/wetlands2/v2ch16.cf). Check out these sites to learn more about Maryland’s wetlands! It’s one of the most important shorebird migration points in the Western Hemisphere. Want to see these wetlands in person and learn more about them? Well, it should be wetlands!

Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems. Rather infamously, beavers fell trees; partially due to their food needs (they feed on bark and cambium, the soft tissue found just beneath the outer layer of bark), and partially to access the smaller branches they use to construct their dams. Retrieved from http://www.fws.gov/wetlands/Documents/New-Hampshire-Wetlands-and-Waters-Results-of-the-National-Wetlands-Inventory.pdf). In riparian zones you can find bosques (riparian forests), marshes, ciénegas (a spring-fed wetland), and oxbow lakes, while tinajas (ephemeral pools), playas, and caldera lakes will sometimes be the only sources of water in the more arid landscapes. Freshwater marshes with shorter, greener vegetation emerging through their shallow waters offer food and shelter to black tern, bald eagle, muskrats, and minks, while acting as a filter for excess sediment and nutrients in the water cycle. 547). The variance and sheer size of this system means that Louisiana’s coastal wetlands can support a wide variety of wildlife, contributing 28 percent to the total volume of U.S. fisheries, providing winter habitat for over half of the Mississippi Flyway waterfowl population, and sheltering six federally listed threatened and endangered species. Some are temporary, while others may be essentially permanent. Would you have guessed that over 400,000 acres of wetlands exist in Ohio?

About 20%  of Georgia is considered a wetland, with over 60 different types found across the state! Biddle, A.D. Jacobs, A.B. 547). 547). In addition to feeding and housing these ecologically and commercially important wildlife species, Louisiana’s coastal wetlands also serve to protect the coast! Appendix: State Profiles. Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems. In certain places in New Mexico, such as at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, both actions work together to create sinkholes and springs, the basis for many of the region’s wetlands. ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; National Park Service, “Cuyahoga Valley National Park,” http://www.nps.gov/cuva/index.htm; Audubon Adventures Ohio Series, “Ohio’s Wetland Wonderlands,” http://epa.ohio.gov/Portals/42/documents/AA%20wetlands%201%20fixed.pdf; Environmental Law Institute, “State Wetland Protection: Status, Trends, & Model Approaches. ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. Peatlands are areas with or without vegetation that have an accumulated peat layer – a layer of partially decomposed plant material that has accumulated over time. They have many beneficial functions, including reducing risk and severity of flooding to downstream communities, and providing breeding habitats to dozens of bird species. ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. Learn more about pothole wetlands and Arches National Park. Without wetlands, human communities lose many of the vital services that they provide, including water purification, flood control, and food supply. Many of these areas owe their existence to a major event in the past—the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and the Laurentide Ice Sheet, for example, carved out and flooded much of the prairie pothole region, and historic shifts in the underlying bedrock can account for instances where groundwater trickles to the surface in seep and spring wetlands. As the planet warmed, the glaciers retreated, scouring indentations in the terrain and leaving large chunks of ice to melt in their wake.

In B. Wilbur (Ed. From 80,000 to 18,000 years ago, thick sheets of ice covered much of North America, including northern New Jersey, which was buried nearly a mile deep. ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. (Sources: Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs “Wetlands: Our ‘Common Wealth’” http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/water/watersheds/wetlands-our-common-wealth.html; NPS “Cape Cod National Seashore: Amphibians” http://www.nps.gov/caco/naturescience/amphibians.htm; Smith, T. M., & Smith, R. L. (2009). In others, droughts are destroying estuaries, floodplains and marshes. This special type of emergent marsh is extremely productive and a critical nesting and feeding area for North America’s migratory waterfowl and shorebird populations. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; Environmental Law Institute, “State Wetland Protection: Status, Trends, & Model Approaches. Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems. The smaller two complexes are the saline/alkaline wetlands and the riverine wetlands.

West Virginia is home to just over 100,000 acres of wetlands, which provide valuable habitat for species such as the snapping turtle, muskrat, blue heron, sedge wren, and wood duck.

Each of these wetlands act as sponges—in times of heavy rainfall and snowmelt they absorb large volumes of water, decreasing the potential for flood damage and reducing the flow’s erosive force. Emergent wetlands, commonly called marshes and wet meadows, consist of grass, sedge and other non-woody vegetation. 547). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; Environmental Law Institute, “State Wetland Protection: Status, Trends, & Model Approaches. Altogether, this region produces two-thirds of the 10-12 million waterfowl of the continental United States, making it the most productive wetlands habitat for waterfowl in North America. They can be found in along the Narragansett Bay estuary, small embayments and estuarine rivers. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; Environmental Law Institute, “State Wetland Protection: Status, Trends, & Model Approaches. A good place to find wetlands in Alabama is Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge. Wetlands make up about 4.5% of Virginia’s total land area, or about 1.2 million acres. Maryland’s wetlands are home to the largest east coast population of breeding bald eagles north of Florida! ), Elements of Ecology (6th ed., pp. Donations are tax-deductible as allowed by law.

San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings; Texas Parks and Wildlife, “Texas Treasures: Wetlands,” http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_k0700_0908.pdf; USFWS, “Refuge List by State: Texas,” https://www.fws.gov/refuges/profiles/ByState.cfm?state=TX), In Utah, a good place to find wetlands, or small pools, is in Arches National Park. Wetlands adjacent to river and stream systems also mitigate erosion—the water current is slowed by the presence of the wetland vegetation on the riverbanks and the roots of the wetland plants help to hold the soil in place. Here are a few parks and refuges you can visit: (Sources: Smith, T. M., & Smith, R. L. (2009). About 3% of Hawaii is covered in wetlands! Today, both of these wetland areas serve to improve water quality, filtering out sediment and chemical pollutants which could pose a hazard to human and wildlife communities alike. They can be freshwater or estuarine (located at the coast with brackish water) or both! Visit seven National Wildlife Refuges in Tennessee to see more wetlands and wildlife. That’s about 5.3 million acres of wetlands in the Badger State. Across the globe, this water dominance is expressed in many ways due to differences in regional climate, geology, and hydrology, and thus no two wetlands will be the same. Southern New Jersey was also affected, where the tundra landscape would fit in with modern-day Alaska.

Missouri Wetlands: A Vanishing Resource (Water Resources Report No. In B. Wilbur (Ed. Shrub wetlands, including swamps and bogs, consist of woody vegetation that is less than 20 feet tall. For this reason, the potholes cannot sustain fish and insect life that would require permanent waters, eliminating many predators for the smaller invertebrates that call these pools home. Concord: NH New Hampshire Fish and Game Department Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program. These dynamic conditions allow the tidal marshes to support a wide range of species, so they are an important habitat area for wintering waterfowl populations as well as key protection for juvenile fish. Nine different types of natural wetlands are found across the state of Missouri! These animals can be sorted into three categories: Click here to learn more about pothole wetlands and Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park! California is so vast in size that many different types of wetlands exist, including vernal pools.

Although they cover less than one percent of the state, these wet areas are vitally important to local wildlife, serving as breeding and stopover habitat for many species of migratory birds and a permanent habitat for larger animals. Due to its location on the Delaware Bay, the Refuge is a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. U.S. Coastal and Wetland Ecosystems.