10.2 Wetland Ecology

10.2 Wetland Ecology

Key Vocabulary

​Obligate Species

​Hydrophytes

Halophytes

Central Flyway

Mississippi Flyway​

Waterfowl​

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Wetlands Plant and Animal Life

​Many plant and animal species live in the wetlands, including a number of rare and endangered species

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• The plants that grow in wetlands provide shelter from predators for prey species and nesting areas for birds

• The water gives fish and shellfish a place to spawn

• Some animal species spend their entire lives in the wetlands

others -- called obligate species -- need to visit the wetlands to breed or raise offspring

Wetland Plants

​Hydrophytes: plants that live in water. Can be completely or partially submerged in water

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Adaptations include strategies for getting oxygen such as:  stem porosity, root and trunk adaptations

• Wetland Plants

  • Adapted to take advantage of every ray of sunlight

  • Roots that pull in water and still get air

  • Roots that hold tight to the soil

  • Buoyant leaves

  • Long stems so they can grow in deeper water

  • Plants that float on surface like duckweed

• Halophytes

  • Plants that can live in high salinity​

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​Wetland Plants

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• Animals in Wetlands

  • home to many invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, fish, birds, and mammals

  • small young fish hide from larger predators in the plant filled shallow water wetlands

  • most of the important fish and invertebrates in the Gulf of Mexico are dependent on wetlands as a place for their young to feed and grow up safely​​

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​Wetland Animals

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• Examples:

  • ​​Whirligig beetle: eye to focus above and below water line

  • Black-necked stilt: legs and feet to walk in mud, beak to hunt frog & fish below surface

  • Mosquito fish: upturned eyes and  mouth to eat larvae from surface

  • Ducks: spoonlike, flat beaks to strain water for seeds & invertebrates from the water

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​Wetland Animals

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Wetland Food Web

​Texas’ coastal wetlands are especially important places for migratory waterfowl(ducks, geese, swan) to spend the winter

• Texas is at the southern end of the Central and Mississippi Flyways.

• These flyways are like highways in the sky that extend from one end of North America to the other

• Texas’s prairie and coastal wetlands provide winter food and lodging for 90 percent of all ducks and 75 percent of all geese in the Central Flyway

• These wetlands supply plants, seeds, and invertebrates that migrating birds must eat to get enough energy to continue their flight north or south.

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​Food and Lodging for Travelers​

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• If the chain of healthy wetlands from north to south is ever broken, waterfowl like the blue-winged teal we see in Texas, will be unable to survive and reproduce from one year to the next

• Citizen conservation groups, work together with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and other state and federal wildlife agencies to protect and restore wetlands in Texas and everywhere else migratory birds go

•  Migratory bird hunters buy special stamps to help pay for this wetland conservation.

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​Food and Lodging for Travelers​

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