Wetlands

What is a habitat?
A habitat is a place where an organism lives. It is the area or the type of environment in which a particular kind of animal or plant usually lives.

What is a community?
A community is made up of different populations of organisms living together.

What is an ecosystem?
An ecosystem consists of different communities of living organisms interacting with one another and their environment. It is a group of living and non living parts of an environment that function together as a unit.

What is a wetland?
Wetlands are areas where land and water meet and have characteristics of both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. Wetlands can usually be found along the shorelines of seas, lakes, rivers and lagoons. 

A wetland provides food for the different kinds of animals living within it. Some of these animal live in the wetland for all their life cycle, and others are visitors that come to the wetland to eat, hunt or raise their young.

Types of wetlands
The three major types of wetlands are the marsh, the swamp and the bog. Other types of wetlands include palustrine, lacustrine, estuarine, riverine and marine.

Marsh
A marsh is usually dominated by soft-stemmed plants such as grasses and sedges. It occurs inland and contains fresh water. 
 

  

Swamps 

A swamp is usually a wetland dominated by woody plants such as shrubs and trees. It is a coastal wetland that is affected by tides and filled with salty ocean water. Mangroves plants could be found in a swamp.

 

Bogs 

A bog is a wetland that grows on thick mats of peat, a substance made of partially decayed plants and animals. Bogs tend to form in wet places where decay is slow and plants pile up. These places include springs, slow moving streams, small lakes or ponds, fog drenches hilltops, etc.