Conserving riparian biodiversity

All life forms require water at some time in  their lives.  It follows, then, that water bodies are richest in the number and variety of living things:  bacterial, algal, herbal, arthropodous, piscine, reptilian, avian, amphibian, and mammalian--just to name their groups--the number of individuals being countless  And so it is that water features deserve attention first in any planning process to conserve or restore biodiversity on a site.

The kind of water body that is on a site, or could be there, dictates what interventions might be made.  A vernal pool, for example, is standing water that appears in a low-lying, open area, perhaps near a woods or in an agricultural field, during spring rains and meltwater runoff but that disappears over a period of weeks.  In some instances, as with a vernal pool, the best procedure is to do nothing, other than to insure that the physical features of the land that create it are not interfered with.  Its continued existence can be critical for species, like fairy shrimp, wood frogs, or salamanders, that breed safely away from fish predators in such temporary waters.

Fragile wetland habitats

A wetland has plants that have adapted to periods of wet and dry and actually might have standing water or water-saturated soil only occasionally, as seldom as two to three weeks during the growing season.  

Another transient water body is a zero-order stream, one that flows during snow melt and spring rains and perhaps again in the fall but that remains dry during much of the summer.  

Coarse woody debris

First-order streams and those that are higher order will have flowing water except in the most extreme dry seasons.  Vegetation along their banks will cast shade on the water, providing cool depths for fish to feed and spawn.  Downed logs in streams should not be removed, as they contribute to the diversity of habitat.  Similarly, coarse woody debris--whether on the bottom of a  stream, pond or lake--should be left in place to provide shelter for fry and breeding sites for aquatic insects.

Crossing to safety

The shore of a pond or lake is a crossing place  for water birds and amphibians, crucial for their access to safety and/or food.  A mown grass lawn is inimical to these needs of animals.  A buffer of 300 feet containing wetland species of grasses, sedges, ferns, forbs, shrubs and trees has been determined by scientists in Wisconsin to be the most effective width for filtering sediment from runoff water, thereby keeping pollutants out of lakes, and for providing wildlife habitat.  Almost 80 % of the plants and animals on the Endangered Species List in Wisconsin, for example, live all or part of their lives in the vicinity of shores.*  Try to do the right thing and make the shore buffer the full 300 feet.  But if the width can only be 35 feet or even less, creating it will still throw a lifeline  to the life-forms that depend on it.

Stream inlet, DeRuyter Lake

© Stephen E. Ludwig

Dialogues with neighbors about water

There's a fair chance that the water body on your site also touches your neighbor's land.  While working for biodiversity on your own will benefit the environment around you, bringing your neighbors into the picture by letting them know what you are doing and why you are doing it could extend the natural area even further--to its betterment--if they decide to join you.  Even if it should happen that they do not, you will have had the kind of direct conversation about the environment that is  immediately in front of you and your neighbors, a dialogue that needs to take place at a local level everywhere.

Assessing the lay of the land

Conversations with neighbors will be based on an assessment of the state of the larger environment in which your land is nested. No piece of land is entirely an island; none is, in the natural order of things, unconnected to the rest of the world.  The study of local geography will lead to an understanding of the systems that your site is part of and will also lead to a better vision of actions that your community of neighbors can take jointly to extend lifelines to the future of your children's environment. 

* http://clean-water.uwex.edu/shoreland/restore/index.htm

Accessed May 17, 2008.

   The website address given above replaces an earlier version that no longer exists and from which this information had been drawn.

 Also of interest because of its specific recommendations for an actual site, DeRuyter Lake, is the following website: 

http://www.valleyheadsmoraine.org