Wetlands - Mangroves, Marshes and Bogs - Biomes#9

The world's wetlands are aquatic biomes that are among the most complex and biodiverse on our planet. They can occur anywhere on Earth where shallow water exists, from the saltwater mangroves of the tropics, to the bogs and fens of the arctic. Join me as I take a tour of wetlands on every continent and explain the differences in each of their varied types.

💧🌾🌾💧

🕐TIMESTAMPS🕖
👉0:00 Opening Montage
👉0:24 Introduction and Titles
👉1:16 What are Wetlands?
👉2:46 Mangroves and Salt Marshes
👉4:22 Tidal Freshwater Marshes
👉4:45 Intertidal Flats
👉5:02 Freshwater Marshes
👉6:17 Freshwater Forested Swamps
👉8:05 Riparian Wetlands
👉11:17 Bogs and Fens
👉12:47 Peatlands
👉15:24 Prairie Pothole Region
👉16:01 Threats to Wetlands
👉17:52 Outro

💧🌾🌾💧

Mangrove forest occurs only in the tropics, and along coastlines protected from wave action. They are composed of salt tolerant trees and shrubs. Examples are the Sundarbans of India/Bangladesh, the Niger Delta of Nigeria and the Orinoco Delta of Venezuela.

Saltwater marshes are the equivalent of mangroves in temperate latitudes and are populated by salt tolerant trees and shrubs. Examples include the Camargue of France, the Wash of England and the Mississippi Delta.

Tidal Freshwater Marshes and Intertidal Flats occur in areas of large tidal ranges such as river estuaries including the St Lawrence River of Canada and the River Severn of Great Britain.

💧🌾🌾💧

Freshwater Marshes (marshland) are large non-forested flat areas that are flooded seasonally or year round by incoming streams or rivers. Examples include the Everglades of Florida, the Mesopotamian Marshlands of the Tigris and Euphrates confluence in Iraq.

Freshwater Forested Swamps are similar to Freshwater Marshes except their primary vegetation is trees. Examples include the Amazon Basin, the numerous forested swamps of the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast of the USA, and the Pripyat or Pinsk Marshes of Belarus/Ukraine.

Riparian Wetlands are similar to the above freshwater systems except they are dominated by a river that regularly floods its banks. Examples include the Sudd of the Nile River in South Sudan and the Pantanal of Bolivia/Brazil/Paraguay.

💧🌾🌾💧

Bogs and Fens (peat bog and fenland) are areas where the exit of water is heavily or entirely prevented, allowing the build-up of acids in decomposing expired plants (mostly sphagnum moss) that eventually lead to peat. They are found from the tropics to the arctic, and include the Cuvette Centrale of the Congo River and the West Siberian Lowland, probably the largest wetland of any kind in the world. They are also known as peatlands due to their ability to form peat over time.

In areas such as Ireland, peat has been harvested (turf cutting) for centuries for use in home heating. Peatlands are important in terms of carbon capture and the Earth's carbon cycle. CO2 is trapped in the plant while it is alive and upon expiry, the plant keeps most of this carbon as it is converted to peat. If dried out they can ignite, releasing this carbon and contributing to climate change.

Wetlands have faced threats for millenia, but in 1971 the Ramsar Convention was signed to help protect thousands of wetland sites around the world. However many wetlands in the tropics are still under threat.

This information is ideal study material for Environment and Ecology UPSC and AP Environmental Science courses and exams.

💧🌾🌾💧

FURTHER READING:

Additional charts, maps and images along with the narrative script - click here:

💧🌾🌾💧

📷📹🎥 VIDEO & PHOTO CREDITS ❤️❤️❤️

💧🌾🌾💧

Please support the development of this channel by remembering to 👍 Like, 🔁 Share and 🔴 Subscribe.

Research and Media Procurement Assistance, Spanish CC Translation: Richard Torres

Narrated, Written and Produced by
B.J.Ranson

[Geodiode]

Welcome to the Wetlands! Did you bring your waders? 😄
Please share any experiences you've had of these places that can be found all around the world...

[Dexterร่าง]

This high-quality video clearly enhances our understanding of different habitats in the semi-aquatic ecosystem. The wetlands presented in this video remind me of tropical mangrove forests in my home country, where dense vegetation, brackish waters, and diverse wildlife coexist in a delicate balance.

[consuelovalk]

I live in the Netherlands, which is primarily bog and fenne. A lot of nature has been lost due to urbanization and i always wondered how the Netherlands would look if urbanization didn't happen. I'm trying to learn more about our biome and this has been insightful to me. I still wonder how it would look like to live in a prehistoric world in the Netherlands!

[davidcruz]

The Louisiana bayou and the Philippine coastal marshes are some of my favorite wetlands. Mosquitoes and chiggers and banana spiders and scorpions and centipedes and jungle bees and tank ants don't bother me, water moccasins and gator and catfish are delicious, snakes are fun to hang out with, and mudskippers make excellent bait or you can fry up a couple of dozen of them in a pinch if you're hungry. You can catch crawdads with your bare hands, pick delta oysters off the rocks at the estuary, keep a preying mantis or stick bug as a pet, and river shrimp are plentiful. The weather is almost always hot and humid with the occasional monsoonal or hurricane downpour, which is just the way I like it, like a nice comfortable blanket, and the loud sounds of insects and monkeys and birds at night put me right to sleep. Heaven on earth.
Too many people only know the sedate, boring life around temperature forests or Mediterranean pastoral blandness. I'll take a wetland, scrub land, or tropical rainforest anytime over such places.

[TheogRahoomie]

When I was a kid our elementary school had a big wetland on two sides of it. We would go on nature walks and catch frogs. There were turtles there too. Sadly it got drained and developed 😢wetlands are still my favourite places to go on nature walks.

[amirhossein]

The most underrated video on this channel
Thank you for your great videos

[twenty-fifth]

I feel like as someone from a semi-arid desert, this climate type is my sworn enemy.
But nonetheless cooler then boring steppes. Great breakdown for a complex biome.

[cybermavenstudios]

I live on a Lake in NW Florida, it is bliss.

[richardtorres]

I have visited some mangrove areas here in the Dominican Republic, being in a boat through many channels of waters into the mangroves is very interesting, many birds and many life in them. Great episode as usual!!! 💪💪💪

[garethfarrell]

I always fing myself looking for your videos when I'm preparing a dnd campaign, thanks

[Micropterus]

very thorough video of the wonders of the wetlands!

[Yaboislt]

hi OMG IM A HUGE FAN BECHAUSE YOU HELPED ME OUT THROUGH 3 YEARS OF SCHOOL btw im from the u.k as well

[pradeepkliyanage]

Watching from Colombo, where we have a set of urban wetlands. Thanks for this informative video :)

[StormCoderWorld]

Very useful against tropical cyclones.

[Yaboislt]

Between 300 million and 400 million people live close to and depend on wetlands. They support the cultivation of rice, a staple in the diet of half the world's population. They also provide flood control, clean water, shoreline and storm protection, materials, medicines, and vital habitat.

[hi-gjqi]

A part of Belgrade where i live used to be a swamp and there still are some signs it was. Also the mosquitoes and bugs are so horrible here

[pteranodon]

Nice video. I think montane forests would be interesting too.

[Nhojneirbo]

Another wonderful subject overview video . An interesting wetland ecologically and sociologically is the Sacramento- San Joaquin Delta, which is the largest inland river delta and estuary on the west coast of the U.S. at 738, 000 acres. It supplies a huge amount of water for human consumption and agriculture in California. The regulation of inflow and harvesting of water from this delta has been a complex issue for the authorities, politicians and scientists alike. It lies along a main migratory route for birds, which is only one of the critical reasons that this wetland be preserved in a healthy state.

[Awakeningspirit]

In the West there's often a historical association of death, disease, or even the demonic with wetlands due to the presence of most of those in the days before modern medicine. I find these areas to be some of the most spiritual though, and very metaphoric for the spiritual and the life which water provides. Wherever I find myself in a wetland, I consider myself blessed, and they are in many places!

[daphnecarpenter]

Our Pascagoula River off of the Mississippi River reminds untouched so far.