BIO SCI 97 Lecture : Bio E179 Lecture 1 Notes .pdf
3 Sep 2014
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Document Summary
Wetlands have three general characteristics: they are wet at some point during the year, they have hydric soils (soils formed by water/alluvial processes that are different from the soils of adjacent upland habitat). Hydric soils become anoxic (do not have oxygen available to plants or invertebrates) when they are wet. or obligately associated with wetland conditions (e. g. cattails, bulrushes). Such vascular plant species are known as wetland indicator species : they support hydrophytic vegetation (vegetation that is facultatively. Before european occupation, there were over 200 million acres of wetland habitats in the united states. This original resource was more than halved (54 % converted to other habitats or developed) by 1970. Only an estimated 99 million acres remained by the mid-1970s. California is one of the leaders in the loss of wetland habitats: statewide, 91% of our wetlands have been sacrificed (5 million acres existed in the 1780s; 454,000 in the 1980s), and in southern california.
