1 / 9

Prairie Pothole

Prairie Pothole . Michelle Wheeler Keystone College Oct. 9, 2008. What is a Prairie Pothole?. Prairie Potholes. Shallow wetlands that can be permanent, saturated for 6 months to arid most of the year Direct precipitation, runoff from surrounding flats & groundwater.

jonny
Télécharger la présentation

Prairie Pothole

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Prairie Pothole Michelle Wheeler Keystone College Oct. 9, 2008

  2. What is a Prairie Pothole?

  3. Prairie Potholes Shallow wetlands that can be permanent, saturated for 6 months to arid most of the year Direct precipitation, runoff from surrounding flats & groundwater

  4. Where can you find them?

  5. Diverse Flora • Floating and submerged plants – • Includes: water lilies, pondweeds, southern naiad and duckweed in the open water zone • Emergent zone – • Includes: cattails, bulrushes, bur heads, arrowheads and common reed • Woody zone – • Includes: trees and shrubs like black willow, buttonbush, rattle bush and coffee bean, baccharis and Chinese tallow-tree

  6. Diverse Fauna Provides great variety of habitats. • Reptiles and Amphibians – • Including: alligators, snakes, moccasins, sliders, frogs… • Birds – • Including: rails, cranes, wading birds, ducks, coots, common moorhens, snipe, blackbirds and grackles, shorebirds like killdeer, marsh and sedge wrens, swamp sparrows, and many migrating songbirds • Almost all resident animals use the ponds to drink. • During drought, wildlife concentrate near the more permanent pothole

  7. Threats • Historically: Agriculture • Today: Urban Sprawl • Federal wetland regulatory protections has not prevented the loss of these wetlands. • 40 to 50 percent remain un-drained

  8. Eco Tourism – Bird Watching Songbirds, Shorebirds, Waterfowl Resident Wildlife Water and Forage for Livestock Human Values

  9. Any Questions?

More Related