Freshwater Ecosystems Revitalizing Educational Programs in Limnology (1996) / Chapter Skim
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Wetlands: an Essential Component of Curricula in Limnology
Wetlands: an Essential Component of Curricula in Limnology
Pages 234-246
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From page 234... ...
Students should be taught how wetlands are defined, categorized, and distributed locally and globally; their patterns of development; their ecological and biogeochemical functions; their values to human society; the causes of wetland degradation and destruction; concepts and techniques in wetland restoration and creation; and issues in wetland management. They should also learn about key research areas in wetland science, dealing in particular with concerns about their future in the face of increasing human disturbance.
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From page 235... ...
Ground water upwelling is a major factor in the development of these TABLE 1 Major Types of Wetlands Inland Coastal Freshwater Riparian wetlands Southern deepwater swamps Northern peatlands Tidal salt marshes Tidal freshwater marshes Mangrove swamps
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From page 236... ...
Wetlands have their own distinct flora and fauna and are associated with about one-third of the rare, threatened, and endangered species in the United States (Niering, 1988~. Among the showy or unusual plants of the wetlands are diverse carnivorous plants (sundews, pitcher plants, Venus flytraps, and bladderworts)
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From page 237... ...
ECOLOGICAL AND BIOGEOCHEMICAL FUNCTIONS Wetland productivity ranges from a few hundred grams of dry matter per square meter per year in many peatlands of the northern boreal zone to thousands of grams in coastal salt marshes and inland freshwater marshes (Mitsch and Gosselink, 1993~. In northern peatlands, about 8 percent of the 296 grams of carbon fixed annually from the atmosphere is preserved as peat, which forms a carbon pool of 412 x 10~5 g (Woodwell et al., 1995~.
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From page 238... ...
HUMAN VALUES In recent times wetlands- whether pristine or not have been seen to have a broad array of values to human society (reviewed by Greeson et al., 1979, and Sharitz and Gibbons, 1989; see also Richardson, 1994~. Among the physical values are such properties as shoreline stabilization, flood-peak reduction, and ground water recharge.
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From page 239... ...
As noted earlier in connection with ecological functions, wetlands are important on both local and global scales in the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur (Deevey, 1970, 1973) , and their patterned development often driven by upwelling ground water (Siegel, 1983, 1988; Glaser et al., 1990)
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From page 240... ...
have observed that the efficient-community hypothesis "all plant species that can become established and survive under the environmental conditions found at a site will eventually be found growing there and/or will be found in its seed bank" cannot be accepted completely as a basis for restoration, particularly for the species of sedge meadows. WETLAND CREATION New wetlands are often constructed in the United States to replace nearby wetlands destroyed by development, following rules laid down in Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (Kusler and Kentula, 1989~.
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From page 241... ...
However, replacing mature wetlands that have taken centuries or millennia to develop with cattails goes against the no-net-loss concept because it results in a major shift in biodiversity and ecological function. As argued cogently by Bedford (1996)
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From page 242... ...
4. Can northward migration of peat-forming plant communities into the Arctic, as global warming provides suitable conditions there, take place as rapidly as peatland degradation along the southern boundary of the boreal zone (Gorham, 1991, 1994, 1995~?
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From page 243... ...
1996. The need to define hydrologic equivalence at the landscape scale for freshwater wetland mitigation.
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From page 244... ...
1963. Forest sites, bog processes, and peatland types in the glacial Lake Agassiz region, northern Minnesota.
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From page 245... ...
Pp.52-54 in Proceedings of the Sixth International Peat Congress, Duluth, Minn. Jyska, Finland: International Peat Society.
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From page 246... ...
Pp. 138-143 in Proceedings of the Sixth International Peat Congress, Duluth, Minn.
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