Search

What's a Wetland?

September 17, 2019 9:43 AM

In keeping with a theme from my last blog titled “What the heck is habitat”, this month I explore another critical question within the language of conservation. What’s a wetland?

Wildlife biologists like me adopt a broad definition of a wetland because so too do the wetland-dependent wildlife we study. We find often that a migrating flock of Greater Yellowlegs in August are apathetic whether a wet spot in a crop field has drainage infrastructure underneath it. And that a nesting pair of Soras care little about the motivation or permits behind the construction of a water-treatment wetland in town. To wildlife, and thus to a wildlife biologist like me, what makes a wetland is how it functions. And to describe that critical wetland function we need to consider two factors: water and plants....

To continue reading this article on the Conservation Learning Group blog, click here.

Wetlands in Iowa

Approximately 25% of Iowa’s land area was once in some form of a wetland ecosystem, a number that today has been reduced by upwards of 95%. Although extensive efforts have been made to restore these vital ecosystems, substantial work remains to regain the ecological function they once provided. These ecological functions include flood abatement and attenuation, water purification, ground water recharge, and provisioning of habitat for a rich diversity of plants and animals endemic to the state and often tied closely with wetland ecosystems.