Lesson 2 Page 1
What Plants and Animals May Live in a Wetland Site?
Many organisms are dependent on the wetlands to supply them with food and safe habitats to grow and reproduce.
In pictures of wetlands, you will be familiar with plants that look like the ones below.Wetland plants such as bulrushes, sedges, mint, horsetail, cattails, reeds, and duckweed offer protection and food to the animals living in that area.
Hardy and unusual plants like bladderwort, which prey on insects, are places to lay eggs.
You may also picture animals that like living near the water, such as beavers or muskrats. Or, you may picture fish, reptiles, or amphibians.
Wetlands are very important to migratory birds that fly to other regions during various seasons. They rely on wetlands for rest stops and nesting sites.
Some of the smaller organisms in a wetland include insects such as dragonflies, water-striders or whirligig beetles; spiders (arachnids); mollusks such as snails; crustaceans such as tiny shrimp; or small worms (annelids).
Microscopic organisms that you are less likely to think about are algae.
All of these smaller organisms are sources of food for the larger animals in the wetland.
Whether they are plants, animals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, crustaceans, spiders, mollusks, worms, or tiny, microscopic organisms, each has an important part in maintaining the balance of the wetland environment.
Both large and very small forms of wildlife are important within the wetland. If one or more life forms disappear from the wetland, the others are affected.
For example, if an invasive species such as the European purple loosestrife is introduced, it can quickly crowd out native plants and destroy a wetland.
Consider deer ticks which can carry six terrible diseases including lyme disease, powassan virus, babeossis and more.
Here's what you can do to protect yourself from wetland ticks. Canadian information about lyme disease prevention
Tick diseases
In the early 1700 and 1800s, in Ontario, August was known as the "sickly season". Some swamps, like Cranberry swamp, smelled like a dead animal.
Then, the swamps were drained and the Rideau canal was built. 60% of the workers caught malaria, a mosquito born disease that affects the liver, (swamp fever or ague). At that time, it meant workers were in bed for two months or died.
Today this disease is not caught in Canada because the large numbers of malaria parasites have been reduced. People have used technology such as screens on windows and sprays to reduce the number of mosquitoes that live with humans. http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/building-the-rideau-canal-feature/
Beaver create their own habitat or alter habitats to meet their needs. They carry giardia, beaver fever, and can erode a river bank when they cut down too many trees. They can cause extensive damage to areas. http://agrilifecdn.tamu.edu/txwildlifeservices/files/2016/07/fs_beaver.pdf
