Wetlands Habitat Facts

Wetlands are the link between land and water and are some of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Some common names for different types of wetlands are swamp, marsh and bog. Depending on the type of wetland it may be filled mostly with trees, grasses, shrubs or moss. To be called a wetland, an area must be filled or soaked with water at least part of the year. Some wetlands are actually dry at certain times of the year!

Wetlands have many important functions that benefit people and wildlife.

• Provide habitat for a wide variety and number of wildlife and plants.
• Filter, clean and store water - in other words, acting like kidneys for other ecosystems!
• Collect and hold flood waters.

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• Absorb wind and tidal forces.
• Provide places of beauty and many recreational activities.

Wildlife

Wetlands provide extremely important habitat for a wide variety of wildlife – mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and invertebrates like crabs, crayfish, dragonflies and yes, mosquitoes. Some animals live their whole lives in wetlands and others depend on wetlands for essential parts of their life cycle such as breeding sites. Wetlands provide:

• An extensive and complex food chain used by animals from alligators to zebra butterflies, salamanders, snakes, snapping turtles, marsh hawks and mink.
• Nesting sites and rookeries (places where birds that live in colonies nest together) for: red-winged blackbird, marsh wren, wood duck, herons, egrets, pelicans.
• Spawning and nursery habitat for fish such as: striped bass, mangrove snapper, flounder, sea trout.
• Resting stopover sites for migratory birds, including: Canada goose, peregrine falcon, whooping crane, indigo bunting.
• Shelter and hiding places from predators like marsh hawks and raccoons for prey animals like rabbits and frogs.
• Homes and travelways for: beaver, otter, bear, bobcat, muskrat.
• Clean drinking water for all wildlife and people.

Wetlands also act like sponges by holding flood waters and keeping rivers at normal levels. Wetlands filter and purify water as it flows through the wetland system. Plants found in wetlands help control water erosion.

Types of Wetlands

Marshes

Marshes are areas with shallow water that are mostly grasslands. Marshes can be freshwater or saltwater and the amount of water in a marsh can change with the seasons and in the case of salt water marshes, can also change with the tide.

Plants

Freshwater marshes have soft stemmed and herbaceous plants, like grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. Plants found in saltwater marshes include reeds, grasses and shrubs like rushes, sedges, and saltbush.

Animals

Marshes are home to a variety of animals, including beavers, alligators, newts, shrimp and turtles.

Soil

Marshes have soil with low mineral content.

Location

Freshwater marshes often occur along the edges of lakes and rivers. Saltwater marshes occur along coastlines, inlets and estuaries where they are affected by tides, and often have a source of fresh water from surrounding land, rivers or ground water.

Swamps

Swamps are slow moving streams, rivers or isolated low areas with more open and deeper water than marshes.

Plants

Swamps have trees (for example, cypress tress in freshwater and mangrove trees in salty water) and woody shrubs rather than grasses and herbs. In African swamps, papyrus is the main plant.

Location

Swamps are found in low-lying areas near rivers or coastal areas. Examples include the Everglades in Florida.

Soil

Swamp soil is poorly-drained and water logged.

Animal

Swamp wildlife includes alligators, snakes, a variety of insects, bobcat, beaver, large diversity of birds and river otter.

Bogs and Fens

A bog is a fresh water wetland, usually formed in an old glacial lake with a spongy peat base. Most of the bog’s water comes from rain. A fen is a fresh water peat wetland covered mostly by grasses sedges, reeds, and wildflowers of high pH (alkaline) ground water.

Soil

Bogs have soil that is low in nutrients.

Plants

Evergreen trees and shrubs, and a floor covered by a thick carpet of sphagnum moss. Some species of carnivorous plants are also found in bogs.

Animals

There are only a few animals that are found in bogs. These include, red deer, Dragonflies and birds such as grouse and plover.

Threats

The United States has lost over half of the wetlands in the lower 48 states and the losses continue at an estimate of over 60,000 acres per year.

The life supporting importance of wetlands was largely unrecognized in the past. People drained, dredged, dammed and channeled wetlands, eliminated or converted them into dry land or filled them for lakes and water retention areas -- changing wetlands into cropland, pasture and subdivisions, mining the underlying resources, ridding insect life, filling in for road beds or flooding them for open water lakes, and using them for dumping grounds for waste and sewage.

Legal Status/Protection

In the United States some wetlands are regulated under the Clean Water Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act. Some states and counties also have wetland protections. Internationally, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance recognizes significant wetlands and works to conserve them.

There are several ways people try to protect wetlands today including, most importantly, preserving existing wetlands, and also other actions, such as, attempting to substitute newly created wetlands for areas that are destroyed.

How You Can Help

• Help preserve wetland habitat and wildlife by adopting an animal at our Wildlife Adoption & Gift Center.
• Take action for wildlife at our Wildlife Action Center.

For additional information

To find out what protections exist for the wetlands in your area:

• Visit the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
• Contact your state or local department of natural resources (search the web for DNR and your state name)