What's a Wetland?

Cover-Wondrous Wetlands

Have you ever been to Brazos Bend State Park? Caddo State Park? Estero Llano Grande?

Dude! These places rock!

At these Texas State Parks you’ll find soggy soil, shallow water, and plants with roots underwater. Here you’ll find wetlands, or places where water, plants, and soil meet.

Texas has two basic kinds of wetlands:

  1. Freshwater wetlands
  2. Coastal wetlands

We'll give you some more details about these special wetlands later. For now, let the soggy parts of your brain soak up this:

Where water, plants, and dirt meet, life is good for animals at the bottom of the food chain. In wetlands these critters have plenty to eat. That’s great news for animals further up on the food chain because that means they'll have plenty to eat, too.

Wetland Diversity

 

This creates something called "diversity" (di-vur-si-ty). Diversity happens when many different kinds of animals live in one place. Nature works best that way.

Diversity rules at both freshwater and coastal wetlands. Since coastal wetlands have some ocean salt in the water, they attract different kinds of life than freshwater wetlands.

Imagine yourself in a wetland where water, plants, and soil meet. Use this list of adjectives in sentences that describe what it would be like:

  • mushy
  • gushy
  • shallow
  • muddy
  • slimy
  • slippery
  • diverse

Now that you’ve read about wetlands, watch this awesome Ranger Rick video: http://www.nwf.org/Kids/Ranger-Rick/People-and-Places/Whats-a-Wetland.aspx

Why Wetlands Are Wonderful

Wetlands are wonderful because where water, plants, and land meet animals have lots to eat. We could even say that, for animals, wetlands make super supermarkets!

These supermarkets start out with something called "detritus" (dee-try-tus). Detritus comes from tiny pieces of plants living in or near wetlands. Some folks call detritus "leaf litter." DON’T WORRY! This is good litter!

Tiny microscopic beings at the bottom of the food chain – called "decomposers" – chow down on detritus. They love it like some people love chocolate!

"Yum!" say the decomposers.

Then, "Yum!" say the critters that eat the decomposers.

Then, "Yum!" say the critters that eat the critters that eat the decomposers.

Then, "Yum!" say the critters that eat them.

Then...then...then...well, you get the picture!

Thanks to all the diversity, critters in wetlands get to say, "Yum!" a lot because it's like being in a super-stocked supermarket. Everyone's favorite food is there!

Do you see how much wetlands benefit a variety of life including microscopic critters, birds, fish, mammals, amphibians, insects, and plants?

Plants!? But aren’t they the ones getting eaten in the first place!? Well, if you studied last month's "Keep Texas Wild" you learned that plants are actually THE most important part of the food chain. Without plants none of us would exist.

Learn more about food chains by visiting this really cool website (oh, and it's got games, too!): http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/producersconsumers.htm

 

How Wetlands Benefit Us =>