Wet meadow
Encyclopedia
A wet meadow is a semi-wetland
meadow
which is saturated with water
throughout much of the year. Wet meadows may occur because of poor drainage
or the receipt of large amounts of water from rain
or melted snow
. They may also occur in riparian zone
s.
Unlike a marsh
or swamp
, a wet meadow does not have standing water present except for brief to moderate periods during the growing season. Instead, the ground in a wet meadow is typically damp and squishy, like a well-soaked sponge.
Wet meadows therefore do not usually support aquatic
life
such as fish
. They are, however, a very fecund environment and typically attract large numbers of bird
s, small mammal
s and insect
s including butterflies
.
Vegetation
in a wet meadow usually includes a wide variety of herbaceous
species including sedges, rushes
, forb
s and grass
es. Woody plant
s if present, account for a minority of the total area cover.
Wet meadows were once common through American
states such as Illinois
and Michigan
but their range has been dramatically reduced. In some areas, wet meadows are often partially drained and farm
ed and therefore lack the biodiversity
described here.
The soils in wet meadows often consist of silt
y and clay
-like materials in depressional areas. The major soils are dominantly wet phases, or undrained phases of Peotone silty clay loam, Rantoul silty clay, Booker clay, Edinburg silty clay loam, Brooklyn silt loam, and Denny silt loam. The pH reaction
is typically neutral.
Due to the concern with damage that excessive stormwater runoff can cause to nearby lakes and streams, many people are creating wet meadows to capture stormwater. The idea is to capture and store rainwater onsite and use it as a resource to grow attractive native plants that thrive in such conditions. The Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow
is one such project. It is a group of wet meadow ecosystem
s in Ann Arbor, Michigan
designed as an education
al opportunity for school-age children.
Wetland
A wetland is an area of land whose soil is saturated with water either permanently or seasonally. Wetlands are categorised by their characteristic vegetation, which is adapted to these unique soil conditions....
meadow
Meadow
A meadow is a field vegetated primarily by grass and other non-woody plants . The term is from Old English mædwe. In agriculture a meadow is grassland which is not grazed by domestic livestock but rather allowed to grow unchecked in order to make hay...
which is saturated with water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
throughout much of the year. Wet meadows may occur because of poor drainage
Drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
or the receipt of large amounts of water from rain
Rain
Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
or melted snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
. They may also occur in riparian zone
Riparian zone
A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the fifteen terrestrial biomes of the earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks are called riparian vegetation, characterized by...
s.
Unlike a marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
or swamp
Swamp
A swamp is a wetland with some flooding of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a large number of hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp...
, a wet meadow does not have standing water present except for brief to moderate periods during the growing season. Instead, the ground in a wet meadow is typically damp and squishy, like a well-soaked sponge.
Wet meadows therefore do not usually support aquatic
Aquatic ecosystem
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem in a body of water. Communities of organisms that are dependent on each other and on their environment live in aquatic ecosystems. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems....
life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
such as fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
. They are, however, a very fecund environment and typically attract large numbers of bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, small mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s and insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s including butterflies
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
.
Vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
in a wet meadow usually includes a wide variety of herbaceous
Herbaceous
A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...
species including sedges, rushes
Juncus
Juncus is a genus in the plant family Juncaceae. It consists of some 200 to 300 or more species of grassy plants commonly called rushes...
, forb
Forb
A forb is a herbaceous flowering plant that is not a graminoid . The term is used in biology and in vegetation ecology, especially in relation to grasslands and understory.-Etymology:...
s and grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...
es. Woody plant
Woody plant
A woody plant is a plant that uses wood as its structural tissue. These are typically perennial plants whose stems and larger roots are reinforced with wood produced adjacent to the vascular tissues. The main stem, larger branches, and roots of these plants are usually covered by a layer of...
s if present, account for a minority of the total area cover.
Wet meadows were once common through American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
states such as Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
but their range has been dramatically reduced. In some areas, wet meadows are often partially drained and farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
ed and therefore lack the biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
described here.
The soils in wet meadows often consist of silt
Silt
Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
y and clay
Clay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
-like materials in depressional areas. The major soils are dominantly wet phases, or undrained phases of Peotone silty clay loam, Rantoul silty clay, Booker clay, Edinburg silty clay loam, Brooklyn silt loam, and Denny silt loam. The pH reaction
PH
In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
is typically neutral.
Due to the concern with damage that excessive stormwater runoff can cause to nearby lakes and streams, many people are creating wet meadows to capture stormwater. The idea is to capture and store rainwater onsite and use it as a resource to grow attractive native plants that thrive in such conditions. The Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow
Buhr Park
Buhr Park is a park in Ann Arbor, Michigan.There is a large public swimming pool and a smaller children's wading pool with interactive toys. Buhr Park also includes of rolling hills, picnic areas with barbecue grills, a children's play area, softball diamonds, soccer fields and outdoor tennis courts...
is one such project. It is a group of wet meadow ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s in Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County. The 2010 census places the population at 113,934, making it the sixth largest city in Michigan. The Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 344,791 as of 2010...
designed as an education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
al opportunity for school-age children.
See also
- Coastal plainCoastal plainA coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. One of the world's longest coastal plains is located in eastern South America. The southwestern coastal plain of North America is notable for its species diversity...
- Coastal prairieCoastal prairieCoastal prairie may refer to either:* The California coastal prairie, a plant community found along the coasts of California and Oregon* The Western Gulf coastal grasslands of Louisiana, Texas, and Tamaulipas...
- Flooded grasslands and savannasFlooded grasslands and savannasFlooded grasslands and savannas is a terrestrial biome. Its component ecoregions are generally located at subtropical and tropical latitudes, which are flooded seasonally or year-round...
- Flood-meadowFlood-meadowA flood-meadow is an area of grassland or pasture beside a river, subject to seasonal flooding. Flood-meadows are distinct from water-meadows in that the latter are artificially created and maintained, with flooding controlled on a seasonal and even daily basis.- Examples :* Angel & Greyhound...
- Water-meadowWater-meadowA water-meadow is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries...