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Presented at the NABS Annual meeting, Anchorage, Alaska, 2006
in Wetlands
Variation in environmental habitat heterogeneity and ecosystem processes in freshwater tidal wetlands
A.S. Arrigoni1, K. Tockner1, and S. Findlay2.1Department of Aquatic Ecology, EAWAG Box 611, 8600 Dubendorf, Switzerland, 2Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, New York 12545 USA
One of the greatest influences that human societies have had on the non-human environment is simplification of riverine habitats. This loss of habitat heterogeneity is one of the most serious problems for the persistence and sustainability of ecosystems, however, there is very little known about how changes and differences in habitat heterogeneity influence ecosystem processes in river floodplains/wetlands. As an initial step to investigate the relationship between hydrology, environmental heterogeneity and ecosystem processes (using the water chemistry as a measure of the net result of the processes present in this system), we collected data in ten randomly selected freshwater tidal wetlands along the Hudson River between New York City and the Troy Dam in Albany. A GIS database was used to quantify 12 different environmental habitat characteristics of the wetlands. This information was then used in a comparison analysis with water chemistry data that were collected at the exchange points between the wetlands river during an ebb tide. The analysis showed correlations between the different habitat characteristics such as the shape of the wetlands, the graminoid vegetation, broadleaved vegetation, and different elements of the water chemistry such as the dissolved oxygen concentrations, nitrate, phosphate and chlorophyll.
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