Peat, also known as turf, is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers 3.7 million square kilometres (1.4 million square miles) and is the most efficient carbon sink on the planet, because peatland plants capture carbon dioxide (CO2) naturally released from the peat, maintaining an equilibrium. In natural peatlands, the "annual rate of biomass production is greater than the rate of decomposition", but it takes "thousands of years for peatlands to develop the deposits of 1.5 to 2.3 m [4.9 to 7.5 ft], which is the average depth of the boreal [northern] peatlands", which store around 415 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon (about 46 times 2019 global CO2 emissions). Globally, peat stores up to 550 Gt of carbon, 42% of all soil carbon, which exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including the world's forests, although it covers just 3% of the land's surface. Sphagnum moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most common components in peat, although many other plants can contribute. The biological features of sphagnum mosses act to create a habitat aiding peat formation, a phenomenon termed 'habitat manipulation'. Soils consisting primarily of peat are known as histosols. Peat forms in wetland conditions, where flooding or stagnant water obstructs the flow of oxygen from the atmosphere, slowing the rate of decomposition. Peat properties such as organic matter content and saturated hydraulic conductivity can exhibit high spatial heterogeneity.
A fen is a type of peat-accumulating wetland fed by mineral-rich ground or surface water. It is one of the main types of wetlands along with marshes, swamps, and bogs. Bogs and fens, both peat-forming ecosystems, are also known as mires. The unique water chemistry of fens is a result of the ground or surface water input. Typically, this input results in higher mineral concentrations and a more basic pH than found in bogs. As peat accumulates in a fen, groundwater input can be reduced or cut off, making the fen ombrotrophic rather than minerotrophic. In this way, fens can become more acidic and transition to bogs over time.
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials – often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A baygall is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States. They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink.
Askham Bog is small area of peat bog and Site of Special Scientific Interest situated within the Vale of York in North Yorkshire, England. It lies to the south-west of York, north of Copmanthorpe and near Askham Richard and Askham Bryan. It is regarded as one of the most ecologically diverse sites in Northern England.
Mer Bleue Bog is a 33.43 km2 (12.91 sq mi) protected area east of Ottawa in Eastern Ontario, Canada. Its main feature is a sphagnum bog that is situated in an ancient channel of the Ottawa River and is a remarkable boreal-like ecosystem normally not found this far south. Stunted black spruce, tamarack, bog rosemary, blueberry, and cottongrass are some of the unusual species that have adapted to the acidic waters of the bog.
Ballynahone Bog is a raised bog, situated in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, about 3 km south of Maghera, on low-lying ground immediately north of the Moyola River about 14 km from its mouth at Lough Neagh. It is one of the largest lowland raised bogs in Northern Ireland.
This article gives an overview of the mire plant communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.
Yanal Bog is a 1.6 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the southern edge of the North Somerset Levels, just north of the village of Sandford, North Somerset. It was notified as an SSSI in 1988.
Lough Derravaragh is a lake in County Westmeath, Ireland, north of Mullingar between Castlepollard, Crookedwood and Multyfarnham.
The Portlethen Moss is an acidic bog nature reserve located to the west of the town of Portlethen, Aberdeenshire in Scotland. Like other mosses, this wetland area supports a variety of plant and animal species, even though it has been subject to certain development and agricultural degradation pressures. For example, the Great Crested Newt was found here prior to the expansion of the town of Portlethen. Many acid loving vegetative species occur in Portlethen Moss, and the habitat is monitored by the Scottish Wildlife Trust.
Cors Caron is a raised bog in Ceredigion, Wales. Cors is the Welsh word for "bog". Cors Caron covers an area of approximately 349 hectares. Cors Caron represents the most intact surviving example of a raised bog landscape in the United Kingdom. About 44 different species groups inhabit the area including various land and aquatic plants, fish, insects, crustaceans, lichen, fungi, terrestrial mammals and birds.
Aulacomnium palustre, the bog groove-moss or ribbed bog moss, is a moss that is nearly cosmopolitan in distribution. It occurs in North America, Hispaniola, Venezuela, Eurasia, and New Zealand. In North America, it occurs across southern arctic, subboreal, and boreal regions from Alaska and British Columbia to Greenland and Quebec. Documentation of ribbed bog moss's distribution in the contiguous United States is probably incomplete. It is reported sporadically south to Washington, Wyoming, Georgia, and Virginia.
The Wilderness is a Site of Special Scientific Interest which is located on the Isle of Wight, England. It is close to the village of Rookley in the valley of the River Medina. The Wilderness is an area of wet woodland over a quite deep peat soil with adjacent areas of unimproved acid grassland and wet grassland. The SSSI covers an area of 12.59 hectares, the boundaries being reset in 1984 to exclude an area of grassland which had been artificially improved.
Raised bogs, also called ombrotrophic bogs, are acidic, wet habitats that are poor in mineral salts and are home to flora and fauna that can cope with such extreme conditions. Raised bogs, unlike fens, are exclusively fed by precipitation (ombrotrophy) and from mineral salts introduced from the air. They thus represent a special type of bog, hydrologically, ecologically and in terms of their development history, in which the growth of peat mosses over centuries or millennia plays a decisive role. They also differ in character from blanket bogs which are much thinner and occur in wetter, cloudier climatic zones.
Armillaria ectypa is a species of mushroom in the family Physalacriaceae. Commonly known as the marsh honey fungus, it prefers growing in sphagnum bogs with mosses. It is classified as endangered in Great Britain, and is protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; it is also on the provisional European red data list. A. ectypa has been observed to have both bioluminescent mycelium and fruitbodies.
Astley and Bedford Mosses are areas of peat bog south of the Bridgewater Canal and north of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. They are situated about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) south-east of Leigh, in Astley and Bedford, Greater Manchester, England. They are among the last remaining fragments of Chat Moss, the raised bog that once covered a large area, of around 10+2⁄3 square miles (28 km2), south Lancashire north of the River Mersey. Astley Moss was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Astley and Bedford Mosses, along with Risley Moss and Holcroft Moss, are part of Manchester Mosses, a European Union designated Special Area of Conservation.
Black Lake is a nature reserve in Delamere Forest, Cheshire, England. It lies in the southwestern corner of the forest, just south of the Manchester–Chester railway. It is managed by the Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT) on behalf of the Forestry Commission, and as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) is monitored by Natural England.
Bewick and Beanley Moors is the name given to a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in north Northumberland, in the north-east of England. The moors are asserted to be of national importance by Natural England for the extent, quality and diversity of upland types including heaths, fens, wet grassland, flushes, mires and blanket bogs, together creating an extensive mosaic habitat supporting an exceptional community of amphibians. The moors are important, too, for their relict juniper woodland and scrub.
