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- Wetlands are bodies of water that are still and low
- Examples of them would be swamps, marshes, and bogs which are three different ecosystems that make up a wetland
- Wetlands can help prevent flooding and can be freshwater, saltwater or both
- Wetlands have more characteristics of an ecosystem than a biome
- 4-6% of the Earth is covered in wetlands
- Wetlands exist on every continent except Antarctica
- there are two wetland seasons:
- wet season - steady rainfall, even daily, occur from June to September
- dry season - not much precipitation, occurs from October to May

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Swamps
- swamps usually form around lakes or streams and are surrounded by water
- swamps are usually very humid (too many mosquitoes)
- wildlife that live around or in swamps include frogs, toads, alligators, nesting birds, fish, and other amphibians and reptiles
- one of the largest swamps is “The Everglades” located in Florida
- The Everglades is home to alligators and panthers
- the average climate of swamps is a high of 89 degrees and a low of 68 degrees

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Marshes
- marshes can be found at the mouth of rivers
- marshes are usually surrounded by grass which helps bind mud together and stop water flow
- for example, the marshes along the Gulf Coast help protect Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, and Florida from hurricanes
- the soil around marshes is very rich
- there are three types of marshes
- tidal salt marshes - these are filled from ocean tides
- sawgrass and pickleweed grow around tidal salt marshes because the water is too salty for trees and bushes
- some of the animals that adapt here and not in other marshes include: shrimp, crab, osprey and shellfish
- tidal freshwater marshes - have a low salt content and usually found in forests by rivers
- sedges (herbaceous plants) including chestnuts and papyrus are common plants in tidal freshwater marshes
- inland freshwater marshes - usually more circular
- cannot support aquatic plants
- animals that live here are butterflies, frogs, snakes, and bears

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Bogs
- bogs usually form from rain water or when the ground is low in nutrients
- bogs are usually covered with moss unlike the swamps that have trees and the marshes that have grass
- plant growth and decay normally happen very slowly due to the saturated soil
- the largest wetland in the world is a bog and its located in Siberia, Russia
- it’s called The Western Siberian Lowlands and it covers more 380,000 square miles
- there are six main types of bogs
- blanket bogs
- cataract bogs
- quaking bogs
- raised bogs
- string bogs
- valley bogs
- bogs can take hundreds of years to form

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Plant Species
- different plant species live in different types of wetlands based on if the water is salt or fresh and if the wetlands are wet or dry
- Wetlands that are mostly dry include plants like linguistic, river red gum, black box, and coolabah
- the sometimes wet or dry wetlands include sedges, (as mentioned earlier) reed, herbs, primrose, and nardoo
- Wetlands that are always wet have aquatic plants like ribbbonweed and wavy marshwort

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Animal Species
- There are many different species that are found in wetlands. In fact, Wetlands is the biome that has the highest amount of biotic and abiotic factors.
- some of these biotic factors include animals like alligators, frogs, beavers, duck, shrimp, and birds
- abiotic factors include rich soil, mud, rocks, water, and sunlight

- one type of relationship between species is mutualism
- a bird cleans the teeth of an alligator which takes place in a wetland
- both the alligator and the bird benefit from this

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There are multiple ways the humans have impacted wetlands.
- there have been changes to the flow of waterways which can have an effect on fish and beavers dams.
- there has also been changes in water chemistry
- low levels of dissolved oxygen can build up toxic substances
- humans have also caused pollution in freshwater wetlands
- most pollution happens around cities where humans create large build ups of harmful chemicals and contaminants