Wetlands

Thousands of Carolina bays are found on the Atlantic Coastal Plain between northern Florida and New Jersey. Most of these shallow depressions are wetlands, and many hold temporary ponds that fluctuate in response to seasonal or long-term climatic conditions. Despite the abundance of bays, few studies have described their hydrologic regime. This study examines the hydrologic interactions of Thunder Bay, a 7-ha Carolina bay located on the Upper Coastal Plain of western South Carolina. Data from 38 piezometers, borehole logs, and records of pond stage and weather indicate that water ponded at Thunder Bay is a surface expression of the water table. Although fluctuation of pond stage is largely controlled by precipitation and evapotranspiration, nearly continuous seepage losses coupled with periodic ground-water inflow are also important components of Thunder Bay’s hydrologic regime.

Peatland swamp forests (PSF) deliver a range of beneficial, but often undervalued ecosystem services. In this paper we examined local peoples’ appreciation on the values of PSF and their contribution to conservation. The study was carried out by interviewing 100 respondents living in adjacent to North Selangor PSF and holding three focus group discussions and a few key-informants’ interviews following participatory rural appraisal and contingent valuation methods. Respondents appreciated PSF for direct values including timber, non-timber forest products, source of fish, and water for agriculture. They reported environmental values of PSF like flood prevention, biodiversity conservation, fresh air, soil fertility, perennial water source, and reduction of storm damages. They also reported several health and cultural benefits including sources of medicinal plants, fresh food, and agro-tourism. The monetary values of some benefits were estimated as USD 128/month/family (for fish), USD 128/month/family (agro-tourism) and USD 159,070/year (irrigation). Although direct benefits from PSF were minimal, respondents sincerely wanted to contribute to PSF conservation through participation in community-based rehabilitation project, patrolling and fire protection, tree planting, cash donation, supplying seedlings, and joining in awareness creation programme. The intrinsic values and peoples’ enthusiasm for PSF conservation suggest a community-based approach for sustainable PSF management.

Hydroregimes of ephemeral wetlands affect reproductive success of many amphibian species and are sensitive to altered weather patterns associated with climate change. We used 17 years of weekly temperature, precipitation, and water-depth measurements for eight small, ephemeral, groundwater-driven sinkhole wetlands in Florida sandhills to develop a hydroregime predictive model. To illustrate its utility for climate-change planning, we forecasted weekly wetland water-depths and hydroperiods (2012–2060) using our model and downscaled climate data from the CSIRO Mk3.5 Global Circulation Model under an A1B emissions scenario. We then examined how forecasted water depths and hydroperiods might alter reproductive success, and thereby populations, of five anuran species. Precipitation and water-depth from the prior week were significant predictors of water depth. Our model forecasted shallower depths and shortened hydroperiods for most wetlands when used with the CSIRO Mk3.5 A1B scenario. The forecasted hydroregimes would likely provide adequate reproductive opportunity for only one of the five species we examined. We demonstrate the utility of our model in examining how different climate-change scenarios might affect hydroregimes and, indirectly, biological diversity. Climate change uncertainty highlights the importance of retaining multiple, hydrologically diverse wetlands on landscapes to maximize the potential for successful reproduction by species having differing hydroregime requirements.

Lesotho has only one wetland designated as a Ramsar site, found at Letšeng-la-Letsie, which is located within the Maloti-Drakensberg region. Despite its designation as a wetland of international importance, little is known about its ecology and biodiversity. Information on wetland biodiversity is crucial for monitoring and conservation planning. This study investigated the vegetation-environment relationships in the Letšeng-la-Letsie Wetland, Lesotho. Vegetation and environmental data were collected using the Braun-Blanquet approach and standard methods, respectively. The data were analysed using cluster analysis and ordination techniques. The study recorded a total of 68 plant species from 50 genera and 23 families in the wetland, with Cotula paludosa, Eragrostis caesia, Haplocarpha nervosa and Trifolium burchellianum as some of the most dominant species. Three distinct plant communities were described: Potamogeton pusillus–Ficinia cinnamomea, Helichrysum glaciale–Eragrostis caesia and Cotula paludosa–Trifolium burchellianum. The communities and species richness recorded revealed high diversity in this wetland when compared to similar wetlands within the Maloti-Drakensberg region. Ordination revealed that species diversity and the plant communities are mainly influenced by altitude, inundation depth, mottling depth, longitude and various edaphic attributes (potassium, total organic carbon, sodium and cation exchange capacity). This study provides the baseline information, which is essential for planning, monitoring and managing this wetland of international importance. In addition, the presence of introduced invasive species suggests the need to practically protect this wetland by implementing the developed management strategies. This will ensure the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable ecosystem service delivery and compliance with the Ramsar Convention requirements.

Shifts in soil water content affect seasonal wetland plant communities worldwide, but little is known about the responses and influences of plant communities to soil water content on Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. To determine the relationship between soil water content and plant community structure in seasonally wet alpine marshes, we investigated plant community structures at different soil water content amounts in the field station at sampling sites. We selected and determined eco-physiological characteristics of species belonging to three different functional types (sedges, grasses, forbs) exposed to the same soil water regimes as characteristics in field station and under experimental flooding conditions in controlled treatments on pots plants. The field investigation indicated that decreased soil moisture (from 57 to 43 % m3 m−3) during the growing season was significantly associated with reductions in aboveground biomass, average plant height, and species richness. A shift in dominant plant species within the communities from sedges and grasses to some forbs accompanied the decrease in soil moisture. The controlled treatments demonstrated that the sedge and grass species had higher net photosynthetic rates and higher instantaneous water-use efficiencies than the forb species in the studied communities. The results indicate that shifts in wetland plant community structure and function are the result of longer dry periods and more intense rainfall events. This positive feedback suggests that changes in plant community composition could intensify soil drought conditions in seasonally wet alpine marshes in the future.

Constructed wetland is typically occupied on the urban area, which emulates the function of natural wetland. It is necessary to supply nutrients that vegetation can absorb for its growth thus sustaining the nature system where represents as vegetation. Phosphorus is one of the essential nutrients for the growth of vegetation, whereas in natural wetlands the amount of phosphorus available for the growth of vegetation is insufficient. In this study, Phosphate Solubilization Microbe (PSM) was used for changing the phosphate’s chemical structure in wetland by its metabolism. Therefore, if PSM is added in wetlands, it is expected that the phosphorus removal mechanism by vegetation can be microbially boosted by the PSM. The PSM activity was measured from the soil sampled in advance, and then the experiment was conducted by culturing PSM in string media, excluding vegetation in the wetland module, and varying the concentration of phosphorus and the numbers of media. It was found that the concentration of the available phosphorus was proportional to the number of media by showing the more than half of conversation ratio orthophosphate into the available phosphorus. This study was conducted for verifying hypothesis that PSM might be help to activate a wetland environment without vegetation and PSM can be very useful to environmentally activating a wetland at the beginning of its formation and establishment in nature or after the winter season when the environment of wetland is relatively dormant.

Substantial industrial development, agricultural intensification, and an increasing human population have led to the demise of many seminatural habitats, such as wet meadows, in many countries of Europe. This process can cause the extinction and decline of associated insect species. The present paper is the first study analyzing wild bee diversity and abundance patterns in wet meadows. We surveyed bees using pan traps, transect walks, and nest traps in four Molinietum (Poaceae) meadows near Kraków, Poland. During one season, we identified a relatively high γ-diversity of wild bees, consisting of 105 species (13 from the Polish Red List) belonging to 22 genera, which represent almost one-fourth of the Polish bees. The wild bee fauna between sites was not variable, which was indicated by low ß-diversity. We found that nesting preference of bees did not differ between the study area and xerothermic meadows, which suggests that differentiation in bee fauna of wet and dry grasslands is mostly due to food specialization rather than nesting preference. Abundance analysis of the bee community showed that the least abundant species were disproportionately comprised of oligolectic species, indicating that species closely associated to plants of wet meadows are especially threatened. Moreover, using occurrence data we found that 34% of the species belonging to the families Halictidae, Melittidae, and the tribe Nomadini found in wet meadows are considered rare in Poland. Our results highlight an urgent need to perform further investigations and develop specific protection plans for bees not only in Kraków’s Molinietum meadows, but also in wetlands throughout Europe.

Corrections can be used to estimate actual wetland evapotranspiration (AET) from potential evapotranspiration (PET) as a means to define the hydrology of wetland areas. Many alternate parameterizations for correction coefficients for three PET equations are presented, covering a wide range of possible data-availability scenarios. At nine sites in the wetland Everglades of south Florida, USA, the relatively complex PET Penman equation was corrected to daily total AET with smaller standard errors than the PET simple and Priestley-Taylor equations. The simpler equations, however, required less data (and thus less funding for instrumentation), with the possibility of being corrected to AET with slightly larger, comparable, or even smaller standard errors. Air temperature generally corrected PET simple most effectively to wetland AET, while wetland stage and humidity generally corrected PET Priestley-Taylor and Penman most effectively to wetland AET. Stage was identified for PET Priestley-Taylor and Penman as the data type with the most correction ability at sites that are dry part of each year or dry part of some years. Finally, although surface water generally was readily available at each monitoring site, AET was not occurring at potential rates, as conceptually expected under well-watered conditions. Apparently, factors other than water availability, such as atmospheric and stomata resistances to vapor transport, also were limiting the PET rate.