| This study characterizes the natural resources (plants and soils) of a suburban wetland. The site includes the natural areas of Highland Heights Community Park and an adjoining natural area under multiple ownership. I found a total of 421 taxa of vascular plants, representing 140 genera and 87 families. In addition, 27 bryophyte taxa represented by 17 families and 22 genera were identified. The wetland consists of four different subtypes, which are shrub swamp, wet forest, wet meadow, and wooded swamp. The east and west segments of shrub swamp are notably different in both soil chemistry and floristic composition, the west segment being drier and having considerably more disturbance indicators. Shannon's Diversity Indices for the different subtypes were high and ranged from 2.6 to 3.26. Floristic quality assessment indices (FQAI) ranged from 15 for the east shrub swamp to 40 for the wet forest. FQAI for the entire site was 50. Importance indices of species for different subtypes were low in general, indicating that no one species was dominating the wetland subtypes. Low values for Czekanowski's index of similarity showed the distinctiveness of each subtype. Functional capacity indices varied from 0.46 to 0.87. Habitat evaluation scores were from 34 (shrub swamp) to 195 (wet forest). Soils were mostly acidic and had dry bulk densities of <1.3 g/cc. Mean soil moisture varied from 14.66c ± 0.13% (west shrub swamp), to 60.28 a ± 7.22 (east shrub swamp). All results indicate that the study site is a high quality wetland with a diverse flora and should be conserved. |
