Wonders of Wetlands Final

What are ecosystem services?

Tangible benefits we recieve from nature

What are the 3 types of ecosystem services a wetland provides?

Provisioning (food, freshwater, wood and fiber, and fuel), Regulating (climate regulation, flood, disease, water purification), cultural (aethetic, spiritual, educational)

What are the 3 parameters that qualify a wetland?

1) Wetland hydrology : saturated for 2 consecutive weeks during growing season

2) Hydophytic Vegetation: community of plants adapted to live in saturated soils

3) Hydric Soil: saturated and anoxic soil

Why is hydric soil anoxic?

Bacteria eats the organic matter and uses oxygen in the process of decomposition

What is a structure?

What ecosystems are composed of

What is a function?

What the structures of an ecosystem do

What are the 6 levels of the Natioanl Wetalnd Inventory System?

Marine Wetland, Estuarine, Riverine, Lacustrne, Palustrine, Forested, Marsh and Shrub-shrub

What are carbon related functions that occur in wetlands?

consumption, reproduction, decomposition, primary production

How does Carbon Sequestration occur?

Primary production exceeds decomposition

What is primary production?

Dry weight of plant matter produced

How can forest productivity be estimated?

Tree rings

What are tree rings?

Annual ring-growht cells that surround a tree of new xylem cells

What does the light band represent on a tree

Rapid growth with lots of nutriends, common in the spring

What does a dark band represent?

Slow growth, common in the winter

How does fire affect the carbon sequestration process?

The fire releases all of the carbon prior sequestered by the wetland

Is plants growing a structure, function, or ecosystem service?

Function

What is water quality enhancement?

enriching nutrients into biomass

What is Carbon Fixation?

Nitrogen and Phosphorus are absorbed from the soil

What are vernal ponds?

isolated small depressions (wetlands with least dependable water source)

Why do springs/seeps have reliable water source?

Direct parcipitation because source is groundwater

What type of wetland is from groundwater and above rock strata?

Spring-fed

What is the order of (populations, communities, biomes, biospheres, organisms) ?

Organisms, populations, communities, ecosystems, biomes, biosphere

Sceince became a way of knowing about nature primarily through the early work of

Aristotle

The main adaptation for plants to live in wetlands is the ability to obtain

oxygen

Swamps differ from marshes in that swams are dominated by ____

trees

How did the industrial revolution affect wetlands?

Increase in human population lead to wetland loss for agricultural use. Development was the second biggest cause for the loss of wetlands

How do wetlands help with water quality?

Over enrichment is a big problem, wetland plants remove nutrients from the water and convert it into organic matter to support fisheries

Why is decomposition slow in wetlands?

Hypoxic soil slows decomposition function of baceria

How is bacteria affected by oxygen availability?

More oxygen--> more decomposition

What is evapotranspiration?

the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere by evaporation from the soil and other surfaces and by transpiration from plants.

Why can wetlands be tidal influenced?

Gravity from the moon when all aligned in straight line cause tides.

What is the main source of water for most non-tidal floodplain wetlands?

non-tidal rivers

What is peat?

Organic Matter

From North to south how do wetlands varry?

temperature

From east to west how do wetlands varry?

precipitation

What is a main problem facing the great dismal swamp?

Ditches drained the swamp.

How could carbon emissions be lowered at GDS?

water tables are raised

What is a main challenge for Alligator river?

Climate change

What is the atlantic white cedar's annual response to precipitation?

rain increased tree growth and drained peatland

Where do you check soil for to see if hydrophilic?

Top of B horizon

What is on the O-Horizon

Plants

What is on the A-Horizon?

Brown colored from organic matter

What type of soil do most wetlands have?

Histosols

What type of soil is in many wetalnds and non-wetaldns?

ultisols

What type of fsoil is the opposite of wetlands?

aridisols

Which type of soil has calcium carbonate miners and salt left at surface?

Aridisols

what are distinguishing characteristics of Mollisols?

Deep A horizon

What qualifies as hydric soil?

Any soil which top of B horizon has chroma (2) or lower

What is mottling?

Two or more colors at a depth from rising and falling of the water table

What is a defining characteristic of Histosols?

20-30% organic matter

What causes orange around roots?

Oxidized rhizospheres is when the oxygen from the roots leak into the soil and the iron rusts or oxidizes and turns oragne

What slows down the loss of orangic matter in all wetlands

Lack of oxygen

What does overnrichment of nutrients in water cause? What are the solutions?

Dead zones, wetlands and wastewater treatmnet plants

Why is too many nutrients a problem?

The nutrients cause an algae bloom that diie quickly and the bacteria eat the dead algae taking up the oxygen

How do hydrophytes survive without oxygen? (what is ethylene)

pyruvate can be converted to ethylene which promotes cell death and puts holes in the roots that allows oxygen to pass through.

What is buttressing?

Base of trees are swollen

What are pneumatophoros (knees)

Bend in tree to allow more surface area

What is fluting?

edged roots to hold in place and increase surface area

What are hypertrophied lenticels

large openings in trunk or some roots

What are adventitious roots

roots that arise above ground

What is stomata?

leaf opengings that allow gas exchange

what are inflated stems filled with?

Air

How do hydrophytes grow?

plenty of water and nutrients

What determines zonation in wetlands?

tolerance to inundation

What does shelford's law state?

Abundance in populations can be preducted by an important environmental varibale

How much of the atmosphere does oxygen comprise?

20 %

What conditions change with elevation?

Growing season, min nightly temperature, water availability

What are the categories of hydrophytes and non hydrophytes?

Obl wet >99

Fac wet 67-98%

Fac 34-66

Fac up 1-33%

Obl up <1

Where can we look to evaluate extreme drought?

obligate wetalnd species

where do multiple years of wetness get recorded?

forested wetlands

What is a good species to evaluate climate history?

bald cyprus

What is the order for (kingdom species class family order genus phylum)

Species, Genus, family, order, calss, phylum, kingdom

How does the 50/20 rule work?

Dominant until add up to 50% or above 20% plant cover, if more than 50% hydrophyte then hydrophytic vegetation

What species of spiranthes indicates along a moisture gradient?

spiranthes cernua

How does the weighted avergae work?

relative cover x indicator status and sum up for each group. 1 to wetland 5 to upland. <3 then wetland

What are the steps to cell respiration?

1) Glycolysis (

2) Krebs Cycle

3) Electron Transport Chain and into inner membrane

4) ATP synthase through concentration gradient

What is diffusion

movement of a substance from high to low concentraion

What is osmosis

diffusion of water across a membrane

What are the inputs in cellular respiration?

Hydrogen and Oxygen

What are the outputs of Cellular Respiration?

carbon dioxide, water, and ATP

What occurs in the absense of oxygen (Cell Respiration)

Glycolysis (2ATP)

What does the circulatory system do?

delivers oxygen and glucos to cells to then go to the mitochondria

what are the 3 roles of membranes?

compartmnets, electron chain to pull Hs into membrane, ATP synthase enzyme to make ATP

What does the digestive system get in the form of food?

Glucose

What are some challenging soils and why?

Mollisols (deep A horrizon), sandy soil (no color change) , newly formed wetlands (not enough time for bacteria to eat oxygen and form chroma)

Why can't salt marshes occur on the coast?

Waves are too high energy and wind effects that stress the plants

How to swim if in rip current?

Parallel to shore

Where do salt marshers form?

Behind barrier islands, coastal rivers, river mouths (deltas) - where sediments are deposited

What are the two dypes of rainage basins and what do they look like?

dendritic (tree) and lattice (lattice/straight paths)

What happens to sediments in rivers?

Eroded, transported, and deposited

Where are sediments deposited?

in low gradient streams

What does bacteria in salt marsh soil use as a substitute for oxygen?

Sulfur

What type of plant is common in salt marshes?

Cordgrasses (spartina spp.)

What are some halphyte adaptations?

salt extruded on salt grass, water can bead up, accumulate salt in organse, wavy cuticals, fleshy leaves

In Low marsh, what is the dominate species?

Salt marsh cordgrass, spartina alterniflora

How does 90% of the mass of plants enter the food chains in salt marshes?

Detritus (dead organic matterial)

Where in the US to find salty forests?

South Florida

Where does brackish water occur?

Where brackish marshes and tidal freshwater meets

What is the sceintific name for tall cordgrass? where is it dominant?

Spartina cynosuroides in low salinitiesq

How does salinity change as you travel upstream along tidewater rivers?

It decreases