Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The life forms of a wetland system includes its plants and animals and microbes (bacteria, fungi). The most important factor is the wetland's duration of flooding. [1] Other important factors include fertility and salinity of the water or soils.
Freshwater marshes are highly productive and therefore can support a large biodiversity of vegetation. Vegetation is a key component in determining the structure of a freshwater marsh. [7] In a freshwater marsh, there are emergent plants, floating plants, floating leaved and submerged. [8] The primary plant in freshwater marshes are emergent ...
They are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as habitats to a wide range of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants and animals, with often improved water quality due to plant removal of excess nutrients such as nitrates and phosphorus. Wetlands exist on every continent, except Antarctica. [19]
Freshwater biology is the scientific biological study of freshwater ecosystems and is a branch of limnology. This field seeks to understand the relationships between living organisms in their physical environment. These physical environments may include rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, or wetlands. [1]
Lake ecosystems are a prime example of lentic ecosystems (lentic refers to stationary or relatively still freshwater, from the Latin lentus, which means "sluggish"), which include ponds, lakes and wetlands, and much of this article applies to lentic ecosystems in general.
Sedges are a large family of grass-like plants with many species that form a characteristic part of wetland vegetation. Bolboschoenus, club rushes. Carex, the true sedges, contains over 2,000 species, primarily found in wetland environments. Eleocharis, the spikerushes. Scirpus, bulrushes.
The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [1] Freshwater ecosystems may be lentic (slow moving water, including pools, ponds, and lakes); lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers); and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time). [2]
Many plants in freshwater swamp forests have special adaptations to cope with waterlogged soils, such as pneumatophores (aerial roots) in mangroves for oxygen exchange. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] Some animals have adapted to life in these wet environments, like amphibians with permeable skin that can absorb oxygen from water.