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Article 2.1: "[Wetlands] may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six meters at low tide lying within the wetlands." An ecological definition of a wetland is "an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic and aerobic processes ...
Freshwater ecosystem. Freshwater ecosystems are a subset of Earth's aquatic ecosystems that include the biological communities inhabiting freshwater waterbodies such as lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, springs, bogs, and wetlands. [1] They can be contrasted with marine ecosystems, which have a much higher salinity. Freshwater habitats can be ...
A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants, adapted to the unique hydric soil. Wetlands play a ...
An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem found in and around a body of water, in contrast to land-based terrestrial ecosystems. Aquatic ecosystems contain communities of organisms—aquatic life—that are dependent on each other and on their environment. The two main types of aquatic ecosystems are marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. [1]
Freshwater biology is the scientific biological study of freshwater ecosystems and is a branch of limnology. This field seeks to understand the relationships between living organisms in their physical environment. These physical environments may include rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, reservoirs, or wetlands. [1]
Lake ecosystems can be divided into zones. One common system divides lakes into three zones. The first, the littoral zone, is the shallow zone near the shore. [5] This is where rooted wetland plants occur. The offshore is divided into two further zones, an open water zone and a deep water zone.
Ecosystems may be habitats within biomes that form an integrated whole and a dynamically responsive system having both physical and biological complexes. Ecosystem ecology is the science of determining the fluxes of materials (e.g. carbon, phosphorus) between different pools (e.g., tree biomass, soil organic material).
Wetlands have decreased by as much as 50% since 1900 and in some parts of the world by 90%. [19] [20] Inland wetlands, freshwater marshes making up about 20-25% of all freshwater wetlands globally, [21] have been decreasing approximately 1.2% each year throughout the last century (since 1900). [22] [23]