Water Biomes :: Environment Ecology

Water BiomesMarshland is covered with grasses, reeds, sedges, and cattails. Theseplants all have their grow in soil covered or saturated with water and itsleaves held above water.Marshes may be freshwater or salt. Freshwater fenesdevelop along the change edges of lakes and slow-moving rivers, forming whenponds and lakes become filled with sediment. Salt marshes occur on coastal tidalflats. Inland salt marshes occupy the edges of lakes. They affect the supply ofnutrients, the movement of water, and the theatrical role and deposition of sediment.Salt marshes are best developed on the Atlantic coasts of North Americaand Europe. In eastern North America the low marsh is dominated by a singlespecies, salt-marsh cordgrass. The high marsh consists of a short cordgrasscalled hay, spike grass, and glasswort. Glasswort is the dominant plant ofPacific sailplaning salt marshes.Freshwater marshes provide nesting and wintering habitats for waterfowland shorebirds, muskrats, frogs, and many a quatic insects. Salt marshes arewintering grounds for snow geese and ducks, a nesting habitat for herons andrails, and a source of nutrients for estuarine waters. Marshes are important inflood control, in sustaining high-water tables, and as settling basins toreduce pollution downstream. Despite their great environmental value, marshesare continually macrocosm destroyed by drainage and filling.Marine Life, plants and animals of the sea, from the high-tide markalong the shore to the depths of the ocean. These organisms fall into threemajor groups the benthos, plants such as kelp and animals such as unannealed starsthat live on or depend on the bottom the nekton, swimming animals such asfishes and whales that move independently of water currents and plankton,various small to microscopic organisms that are carried along by the currents.Shore Life, the essentially marine organisms that inhabit the regionbounded on one side by the height of the radical high tide and on the other byth e height of the extreme low tide. Within these boundaries organisms face asevere environment imposed by the rise and fall of tides. For up to half of a24-hour period, the environment is marine the rest of the time it is exposed,with terrestrial extremes in temperature and the drying effects of wind and sun.Life on rocky shores, best developed on northern coasts, is separatedinto distinct zones that reflect the length of time each zone is exposed. At thehighest position on the rocks is the minatory zone, marked by blue-green algae.This transition area between land and the marine environment is flooded onlyduring the high spring. Below the black zone lies the white zone, where