AP®︎ Environmental Science: Topic 8.4 Flashcards

An area where water covers or saturates the soil for part or all of the time, producing waterlogged conditions that favor organisms adapted to low-oxygen soils

Salt-tolerant trees and shrubs adapted to sheltered tropical and subtropical coastal intertidal wetlands

Ecological processes and resources that benefit ecosystems and people; wetland services include water filtration and purification, flood protection, habitat, and shoreline stabilization

Physical trapping of suspended sediment and attached pollutants as vegetation, roots, and shallow ground slow water

Improvement of water quality through physical trapping, plant uptake of nutrients, and microbial transformation or breakdown of pollutants

Temporary storage and gradual release of floodwater lowers peak discharge; coastal wetlands and mangroves also dissipate waves and storm surge and stabilize shorelines

Feeding, breeding, spawning, nursery, resting, and sheltering habitat that supports biodiversity and aquatic food webs

Draining, filling, dredging, clearing, or paving wetlands for construction, causing habitat loss, altered water flow, reduced filtration and storage, and greater flooding or erosion

Dams alter the amount, timing, and distribution of water, sediment, nutrients, and organisms, causing downstream wetlands to shrink, dry, change communities, or lose connectivity

Harvesting organisms faster than they reproduce, reducing populations and disrupting predator–prey relationships, biodiversity, food webs, and fisheries

Nonpoint runoff of sediment, fertilizers, pesticides, animal waste, and pathogens that increases turbidity, toxicity, nutrient enrichment, oxygen depletion, and habitat degradation

Industrial acids, petroleum, solvents, heavy metals, and other wastes that contaminate water and sediment, alter chemical conditions, and harm survival, growth, development, or reproduction