Swamp
As the National Geographic Society [1] defines them, swamps are “areas of land permanently saturated, or filled, with water. Many swamps are even covered by water. There are two main types of swamps: freshwater swamps and saltwater swamps.”
In freshwater swamps in the United States, “cypress and tupelo trees grow and Spanish moss may hang from the branches with tiny plants called duckweed covering the water’s surface. Shrubs and bushes may grow beneath the trees, and cypress knees may poke out as much as 4 meters above the water” [1]. This environment differs from that of saltwater swamps, which “form on tropical coastlines beginning with bare flats of mud and sand that are thinly covered by seawater during high tides, and plants that are able to tolerate tidal flooding, such as mangrove trees, begin to grow and soon form thickets of roots and branches” [1].
Swamps, environments with a wide variety of fauna, as seen in Graph 1 for a breakdown for two different swamps, are usually found in climates mirroring that of the Creeping Swamp found near Greenville, North Carolina [2]. This swamp usually has a warm temperate climate with long, warm summers and short, cool winters, and the amount of precipitation is, on average, 120 cm distributed throughout the year. The water is also moderately acidic (4.3 to 5.7 pH) with a high concentration of Dissolved Organic Carbon [3].
Figure 1: Fauna Recorded in Two Swamp Forests
Swamps set themselves apart visually with dark, often murky brown water, and “are transition areas. They are neither totally land nor totally water” [1]. In the case of the Great Dismal Swamp waters, this is apparent, along with low “dissolved concentrations of inorganic solutes,” and “characteristics [including] ...their high [Dissolved Organic Carbon] concentrations, yellow-brown color, and low pH” [4].
Furthermore, while marshes and swamps may be assumed to be the same, there are noteworthy distinctions. The Forest Preserve District of Will County [5] and the National Geographic Society [1] present that “while the presence of water is the main similarity between marshes and swamps, the kind of plant life present in the area is the primary difference between them. Swamps are predominantly forested, while marshes have few if any trees but are home to grasses and herbaceous plants, including annuals, perennials and biennials.” This statement becomes clearer with the fact that “swamps are often classified by the predominant type of tree growing there. For example, there are hardwood swamps, cedar swamps and cypress swamps” [5].
[1] National Geographic Society. (2011, January 21). Swamp. Retrieved (2021 ,July 21), from https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/swamp/
[2] Bioscience. (2011, January 1). Biodiversity and Conservation of Tropical Peat Swamp Forests. Retrieved (2021 ,July 21), from https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/61/1/49/304606
[3] JSTOR. (1981, September). Organic Carbon Flow in a Swamp-Stream Ecosystem. Retrieved (2021 ,July 21), from https://www.jstor.org/stable/2937276?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
[4] ScienceDirect. (2004). Rare Earth Element Concentrations and Speciation in Organic-rich Blackwaters of the Great Dismal Swamp, Virginia, USA. Retrieved (2021 ,July 21), from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009254104002050?via%3Dihub
[5] Forest Preserve District of Will County. (2020, June 11). What's the Difference?: Wetland vs. Marsh vs. Swamp. Retrieved (2021 ,July 21), from https://www.reconnectwithnature.org/news-events/the-buzz/what-the-difference-marsh-vs-swamp-vs-wetland