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A swamp is a forested wetland. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation or soil saturation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps. In the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more formally termed a bog, fen, or muskeg. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.
Wetlands, or simply a wetland, is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently or seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from terrestrial land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique anoxic hydric soils. Wetlands are considered among the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal species. Methods for assessing wetland functions, wetland ecological health, and general wetland condition have been developed for many regions of the world. These methods have contributed to wetland conservation partly by raising public awareness of the functions some wetlands provide. Constructed wetlands are designed and built to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as to divert stormwater runoff. Constructed wetlands may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design.
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.
Taxodium is a genus of one to three species of extremely flood-tolerant conifers in the cypress family, Cupressaceae. The generic name is derived from the Latin word taxus, meaning "yew", and the Greek word εἶδος (eidos), meaning "similar to." Within the family, Taxodium is most closely related to Chinese swamp cypress and sugi.
Carolina bays are elliptical to circular depressions concentrated along the East Coast of the United States within coastal New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and north Florida. In Maryland, they are called Maryland basins. Within the Delmarva Peninsula, they and other coastal ponds are also called Delmarva bays.
Taxodium distichum is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide range of soil types, whether wet, salty, dry, or swampy. It is noted for the russet-red fall color of its lacy needles.
The Apalachicola National Forest is the largest U.S. National Forest in the state of Florida. It encompasses 632,890 acres and is the only national forest located in the Florida Panhandle. The National Forest provides water and land-based outdoors activities such as off-road biking, hiking, swimming, boating, hunting, fishing, horse-back riding, and off-road ATV usage.
The mud snake is a species of nonvenomous, semiaquatic, colubrid snake endemic to the southeastern United States.
W. Gordon Belser Arboretum is part of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, South Carolina, managed by the Department of Biological Sciences. The arboretum serves as a nature preserve, field laboratory and research site for students and faculty. It is open to the public at a monthly open house. A small botanic garden features shrubs and small trees suitable for Columbia's home landscapes. The remaining landscape features southeast native trees and plant communities and is a certified Palmetto Wildlife Habitat.
The hispid cotton rat is a rodent species long thought to occur in parts of South America, Central America, and southern North America. However, recent taxonomic revisions, based on mitochondrial DNA sequence data, have split this widely distributed species into three separate species. The distribution of S. hispidus ranges from Arizona in the west to Virginia to the east and from the Platte River in Nebraska in the north to, likely, the Rio Grande in the south, where it meets the northern edge of the distribution of S. toltecus. Adult size is total length 202–340 mm (8.0–13.4 in); tail 87–122 mm (3.4–4.8 in), frequently broken or stubbed; hind foot 29–35 mm (1.1–1.4 in); ear 16–20 mm (0.63–0.79 in); mass 50–250 g (1.8–8.8 oz). They have been used as laboratory animals.
Lindera melissifolia, common name pondberry or southern spicebush, is a stoloniferous, deciduous, aromatic shrub in the laurel family. This endangered species is native to the southeastern United States, and its demise is associated with habitat loss from extensive drainage of wetlands for agriculture and forestry. Restoration efforts are currently being conducted.
The Mississippi lowland forests are a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion in the eastern United States, covering an area of 112,300 km2 (43,400 sq mi).
J. Whitfield "Whit" Gibbons is an American herpetologist, author, and educator. He is Professor Emeritus of Ecology, University of Georgia, and former Head of the Environmental Outreach and Education program at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL).
The Middle Atlantic coastal forests are a temperate coniferous forest mixed with patches of evergreen broadleaved forests along the coast of the southeastern United States.
Phinizy Swamp Nature Park is a 1,100-acre (450 ha) nature park in Augusta, Georgia. The park contains wetlands and woodlands and has a campus for water research and environmental education, which includes a visitor center. It has many bald cypresses draped in Spanish moss and forests of loblolly trees. Birds commonly found at Phinizy Swamp include: red-shouldered hawks, great blue herons, sora, wood ducks and bald eagles. Sometimes the park yields rarities for Georgia, including black-bellied whistling ducks, which nested in the park in 2010, and a cave swallow, in 2004.
A cypress dome is a type of freshwater forested wetland, or a swamp, found in the southeastern part of the United States. They are dominated by the Taxodium spp., either the bald cypress, or pond cypress. The name comes from the dome-like shape of treetops, formed by smaller trees growing on the edge where the water is shallow while taller trees grow at the center in deeper water. They usually appear as circular, but if the center is too deep, they form a “doughnut” shape when viewed from above. Cypress domes are characteristically small compared to other swamps, however they can occur at a range of sizes, dependent on the depth.
A bayhead or baygall is a specific type of wetland or swamp habitat. The name baygall is derived from sweetbay magnolia and sweet gallberry holly. Baygalls are recognized as a discrete ecosystem by ecologists and the swamps have been described as "distinct wetland communities in the Natural Communities of Louisiana". Baygall swamps are most often found in the low lying margins of floodplains and bottomlands with little or poor drainage to the main creek, bayou, or river channel. Baygall or bayhead swamps found on slopes and hillsides are sometimes referred to as a forest seep or hanging bogs. Hanging bogs are typically found in hardwood-pine forests. Most baygall swamps are semi-permanently saturated, or flooded.
Vulnerable waters refer to geographically isolated wetlands (GIWs) and to ephemeral and intermittent streams. Ephemeral and intermittent streams are seasonally flowing and are located in headwater position. They are the outer and smallest stems of hydrological networks. Isolated wetlands are located outside floodplain and show poor surface connection to tributaries or floodplains. Geographically isolated wetlands encompass saturated depressions that are the result of fluvial, aeolian, glacial and/or coastal geomorphological processes. They may be natural landforms or the result of human interventions. Vulnerable waters represent the major proportion of river networks.
Katherine Carter Ewel is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida's School of Forest Resources and Conservation. She is an ecosystem, forest, and wetlands ecologist who has worked in Florida for much of her career, focusing much of it on cypress swamps, pine plantations, and mangrove forests in the Pacific. Ewel served as the vice-president of the Society of Wetland Scientists in 2003, becoming president in 2004 and now since 2005, a past president. She has now retired and lives near Gainesville, Florida.
Catherine Keever was an educator and ecologist focused on ecological succession and highland region ecology. Keever proved that moss is the first plant to grow on bald rock, rather than lichens.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Rebecca R. Sharitz | Department of Plant Biology". University of Georgia. 2018. Retrieved 2023-03-21.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Pederson, Neil (2019-02-15). "Deep Ecology with Becky: A remembrance of Dr. Rebecca Sharitz". Broadleaf Papers. Archived from the original on 2023-03-27. Retrieved 2023-03-21– via Ecological Society of America.
- 1 2 3 4 "National Wetlands Awards: Rebecca Sharitz". Environmental Law Institute. 2010. Retrieved 2023-03-28.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gavrilles, Beth (2020-05-05). "Fellowship honors late Prof. Emerita Rebecca Sharitz". UGA Today. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Battaglia, Loretta (January 2019). "In memoriam: Dr. Rebecca Reyburn Sharitz" (PDF). Friends of Congaree National Park. Wetland Science & Practice.
- ↑ Palta, Monica M.; Doyle, Thomas W.; Jackson, C. Rhett; Meyer, Judy L.; Sharitz, Rebecca R. (2012). "Changes in Diameter Growth of Taxodium distichum in Response to Flow Alterations in the Savannah River". Wetlands. 32 (1): 59–71. doi:10.1007/s13157-011-0245-9. ISSN 0277-5212. S2CID 256038220.
- ↑ De Steven, Diane; Sharitz, Rebecca R. (1997). "Differential recovery of a deepwater swamp forest across a gradient of disturbance intensity". Wetlands. 17 (4): 476–484. doi:10.1007/BF03161513. ISSN 0277-5212. S2CID 18796178.
- ↑ Putz, Francis E.; Sharitz, Rebecca R. (1991). "Hurricane damage to old-growth forest in Congaree Swamp National Monument, South Carolina, U.S.A." Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 21 (12): 1765–1770. doi:10.1139/x91-244. ISSN 0045-5067.
- ↑ "Society Awards". Society of Wetland Scientists. 2008. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- ↑ "History". INTECOL. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- ↑ "Everglades Science Review Panel". Newswise. US Newswire. 1999-09-24. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- ↑ "Vice-Presidents". Ecological Society of America. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- ↑ "ABS Elected Officers". Association of Southeastern Biologists. Retrieved 2023-04-12.
- ↑ "Graduate Awards and Scholarships". Odum School of Ecology. Retrieved 2023-04-20.