This week on Discover Nature, learn about Missouri’s wetlands.
February 2nd is celebrated as “World Wetlands Day”, and Missouri is home to many wetlands around the state. A wetland is defined as “a transition zone between land and a variety of aquatic environments.” These areas share characteristics of both land and aquatic environments, but they also have their own qualities that make them unique.
Wetlands can be found where the water table occurs at or near the surface of the land, or where water from precipitation sits on top of the ground’s surface. Wetlands typically have the following characteristics: (1) the wetland is dominated, at least periodically, by plants that like wet conditions, (2) the ground is composed of poorly drained, saturated soil, and (3) the ground is saturated or covered by water at some time during the growing season. The many wetland habitat types that meet these criteria support incredibly diverse plant and wildlife communities, mitigate floods and droughts, and uptake nutrients from the surrounding landscape as water moves through them on its way to Missouri’s streams and rivers.
Representative species that can be found in wetland areas are smartweeds, rushes, water lilies, and bald cypress, among many other species. To learn more about wetlands, go to mdc.mo.gov and search “wetlands”. If you are interested in visiting a wetland in Central Missouri, head on over to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area in Boone County.
