sawgrass is the dominant vegetation in an everglades slough.
sawgrass is the dominant vegetation in an everglades slough.
the dominant vegetation in an everglades slough includes?
sawgrass
sloughs are channels of free-flowing water in between the sawgrass marshes. sloughs are deeper than sawgrass marshes, about , and may stay flooded for at least 11 months out of the year if not multiple years in a row. the peat beds that support sawgrass are slightly elevated and may begin abruptly creating ridges of grass. the borders between these systems are called "ridge-and-slough" landscapes. aquatic animals such as turtles, young alligators, snakes, and fish live in sloughs and they usually feed on aquatic invertebrates, such as the florida apple snail. plants grow here, usually submerged or floating like bladderwort ("utricularia"), waterlily ("nymphaeaceae"), or spatterdock ("nuphar lutea"). major sloughs in the everglades system include the shark river slough draining to florida bay, lostmans slough bordering the big cypress, and taylor slough in the eastern everglades.
geography and ecology of the everglades
vegetation can be understood as highly flammable (pyrophilic) and less flammable (pyrophobic). a fire–vegetation feedback describes the relationship between fire and the dominant vegetation type. an example of a highly flammable vegetation type is a grassland. frequent fire will maintain grassland as the dominant vegetation in a positive feedback loop. this happens because frequent fire will kill trees trying to establish in the area, yet the intervals between each fire will allow for new grasses to establish, grow into fuel, and burn again. therefore, frequent fire on a grassland area will maintain grass as the dominant vegetation and not permit the encroachment of trees. in contrast, fire will occur less frequently and less severely in closed canopy forests because the fuels are more dense, shaded, and therefore more humid thereby not igniting as easily. the closed canopy of the dominant forest vegetation will also limit the growth of certain species, and permit the growth of shade-tolerant plants.
fire–vegetation feedbacks and alternative stable states