Wetlands Study Sheet
1. What are some Characteristics of a pond?
-shallow
-fresh water
-rich in nutrients
-constant water temperature from top to bottom
-both abiotic(non-living) and biotic(living) components
-usually small
-stagnant water
2. What are some ways a pond can be formed?
-man made(dig a hole) -rain fills a hollow dams built by beavers
-oxbow(parts of a river/stream that are cut off from the rest of the river)
-landslides blocking moving water
-glaciers digging hollows to be later filled with water(land depressions)
-built behind natural and manmade barriers
3. What are some Abiotic and Biotic components of a wetland?
-Abiotic-these are parts of an ecosystem that are not living. They are as
important if not more important than the living parts of a ecosystem.
Examples: rock, water, air, sun, soil/dirt, minerals.
-Biotic-these are parts of an ecosystem that are Living.
Examples: plants, insects, mammals, reptile, amphibians, bacteria, fish, birds,
arachnid, algae, fungus.
-What is Biodiversity? Biodiversity is the term used to describe the variety of
life, both plant and animal, found on Earth or in a specific environment or
ecosystem.
- What is an Ecosystem? An Ecosystem is the Living and Non-living components.
Neither part is more important. They rely on each other. What
components make up a wetland ecosystem? (Hint: abiotic/biotic) An
ecosystem can be very small, such as a puddle or an area under a large rock,
or it can be vast, such as an ocean.
4. Living organisms of a wetland ecosystem can be broken up into two
different categories depending on what they eat and how they make their
food. List the two categories and list organisms that are examples of
each.
-Producers:any plant that uses the sun to produce its food for
energy.
trees, shrubs, grasses, duckweed, spike rush, water lily, cattail,
bladder wort, sedge, horsetail, coontail, etc.
-Consumers: any organism that gets their food from another living
organism. There can be many orders of Consumers depending
where they are found in the food chain/web.
First Order- snail, copepod, daphnea, rabbit, muskrat, beaver,
moose, deer.(Herbivores)
Second Order- fox, bear, wolf, coyote, snake, lynx, red winged
blackbird human, hawk, frog.(Carnivores/Omnivores)
5. There are three different zones in a wetland ecosystem. List and
briefly describe each zone.
1. Emergent Zone: Plants are rooted in the soil under the water and
grow above the water's surface. (cattail)
2. Floating Zone: The plants are rooted to the bottom of the pond and
grow upwards where they float on the surface. (water lily)
3. Submerged Zone: This zone is where the entire plant is rooted and
grows below the surface of the water. (Coon Tail)
6. There are three different life cycles of some common plants and
animals found at a pond environment. List a example of each type of life
cycle.
Plant Cattail: This life cycle has two parts. Seed to Plant.
Incomplete Metamorphosis: (Dragon Fly) The organism goes from an
egg to a nymph and finally an adult.
Complete Metamorphosis: (Mosquito) The organism begins as an egg,
then grows to a larva, then changes into a pupa, and finally an adult
is developed.
7. Make up a food chain with at least 4 different organisms and label
them appropriately.
Producer
Algae
First Order Consumer
Snail
Second Order Consumer
Third Order Consumer
Red Winged Blackbird
Hawk
8. Make up a food chain with numerous organisms and tell how they are
interrelated by the food web.
Daphea
Caddisfly
Larve
Dragonfly
nymph
Predacious
Diving Beetle
Red Winged
Blackbird
Algae
Sludge Worm
Snails
Detritis