ENWC416 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Acer Rubrum, Pinus Serotina, Muskeg
8 Oct 2018
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ENWC416 Wildlife Habitat Management Lecture 7
Inland Wetlands
• Wetland = transitional areas between terrestrial and aquatic systems where the water
table is at or near the surface or the land is covered by water (Cowardinet al. 1979)
• Three basic attributes of wetlands
o Hydrophytic vegetation (Plants adapted to life in water or in waterlogged
substrates)
o Hydric soils (permanently or seasonally saturated by water, resulting in
anaerobic conditions)
o Hydrology (of inundation or saturated soils)
o USFWS -Substrate can be non-soil (gravel) or non-vegetated (mudflats)
• Wet meadows (Grassland with waterlogged soil near the surface but without standing
water for most of the year)
o a.k.a. wet savannas, wet grasslands, wet prairies
o Occur in poorly drained areas such as shallow lake basins, low-lying farmland,
and the land between shallow marshes and upland areas.
o Usually without standing water, though the high-water table allows the soil to
remain saturated.
o Dominated by grasses (Gramineae), sedges (Cyperaceae), and rushes
(Juncaceae)
• Prairie Potholes (Shallow marshlikeponds) Depressional wetlands
o Upper mid-west USA
o Glaciated landscape fills with snowmelt and rain
o One of the most important wetland regions of the world (support 50% breeding
NA waterfowl)
o Absorb floodwaters
o More than half have been drained
• Vernal Pools
o (Shallow, intermittently flooded marshes, generally typical of Mediterranean
climate with dry season for most of the summer and fall. Term is now used to
indicate wetlands temporarily flooded in the spring throughout the US)
o Seasonal depressional wetlands
o Generally isolated (can be connected by vernal swales)
o Critical breeding habitat for amphibians 90% of vernal pool habitat lost in
California
• Playa Lakes (shallow depressional recharge wetlands)
o Round holes, ephemeral
o Southern High Plains of USA
o Each playa has its own watershed
o Carved by wind or formed by subsidence
o 99% of the 75,000 lakes are on private lands
• Forested Swamp (Wetland dominated by trees)
o a.k.a. bottomland hardwood, forested wetland, bayou
