Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck back again with another edition, I believe
Speaker 1: number eight in our Thanks spring the playlist, and today
Speaker 1: you're going to be learning all about wetlands because the
Speaker 1: name of the episode is wetlands exclamation point, Wetlands exclamation point,
Speaker 1: wetlands exclamation point.
Speaker 2: Can you tell we love wetlands? I think you will too.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff you should Know a production of Iheartradios
Speaker 3: How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Charles and Jerry's over there, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know, the Dripping Wet.
Speaker 1: Edition in These wet Lands.
Speaker 2: What I knew that you would not get? That? Is
Speaker 2: that a secret reference?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, why do you have to say Segar when
Speaker 1: you always mean Springsteen?
Speaker 2: Was that Springsteen? Yeah? It's bad lands, Okay, baby, These
Speaker 2: wetlands are born to run.
Speaker 1: Sure, run water.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't like myself anymore. Run water. That
Speaker 2: was a great save, Chuck. Thanks, So we're talking wetlands.
Speaker 2: I have to say we have to give a shout
Speaker 2: out to Tom Peterman, the foul mouthed wetland biologist who
Speaker 2: keeps asking us to do this episode. Oh is that
Speaker 2: where this came from mm hmm. It was a Tom
Speaker 2: Peterman suggestion, although I had already wanted to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, we love our sciences, man. This
Speaker 1: one was I was just smiling from ear to ear
Speaker 1: researching this.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine watching a blacksmith forge something in a wetland,
Speaker 2: in a flooded woodland?
Speaker 1: No, I just that's nirvana right there, It really is.
Speaker 2: So we're talking wetlands everybody. And Dave Ruz helped us
Speaker 2: put this one together. A good one. And Dave likes
Speaker 2: to pop in jokes every once in a while. And
Speaker 2: he said does He said, what makes a wetland wet water?
Speaker 2: And then he says, in all seriousness, that's basically that
Speaker 2: the water has to be largely present at least some
Speaker 2: parts of the year in the soil, in such amounts
Speaker 2: that you would call something wetland. I mean, think of
Speaker 2: the name wet land. It's about as earthy a term
Speaker 2: as science gets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he frontloaded this with a few stats and
Speaker 1: I won't go through all of them, but I'll go
Speaker 1: through a few that kind of are instructive as to
Speaker 1: why I love wetland so much. Here's one, although wetlands
Speaker 1: make up only five percent of the land surface in
Speaker 1: the United States, they are home to thirty one percent
Speaker 1: of our plant species. Yeah, not bad. One third of
Speaker 1: America's threatened or endangered species species live only in wetlands.
Speaker 2: I would propose that that's slightly misleading. I think they're
Speaker 2: endangered because they live in wetlands, and wetlands are endangered,
Speaker 2: as we'll see. Hmm, think about it, Chuck.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I took it more as like they're.
Speaker 2: All hiding out in the wetlands because it's a terrible
Speaker 2: place to hide out.
Speaker 1: No, it's not bad because it's got thirty one percent
Speaker 1: of the plant species. I mean, it's a pretty rich,
Speaker 1: biodiverse area to live in if you're an endangered species.
Speaker 2: For sure. All right, Tomato, Well, we'll have to hear
Speaker 2: from Thomas Peterman, the Foulmouth Wildlife for Wetland biologists, who
Speaker 2: can let us know.
Speaker 1: What does he say, like, do f and wetlands already? Yes,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Yeah, I like this guy.
Speaker 2: I think that's an exact quote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's my kind of dude.
Speaker 2: So another stat that I thought was pretty interesting that
Speaker 2: we'll just kind of needs to form the basis or
Speaker 2: the undercurrent of this whole episode is that, so we
Speaker 2: keep talking about the US. There's wetlands found all over
Speaker 2: the world of different types and varieties and different climates
Speaker 2: and different different continents, every continent except Antarctica. But in
Speaker 2: the United States in particular, we have a long history
Speaker 2: of filling in and draining wetlands for other purposes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so much so that let's see, I believe I don't
Speaker 2: know how much we've lost, but in the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: the Lower forty eight States were covered with two hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty million acres of wetlands, which is eleven percent
Speaker 2: of the total surface area of the Lower forty eight States.
Speaker 2: And I think starting in the fifties we were doing
Speaker 2: away with wetlands at a rate of about sixty thousand
Speaker 2: of those acres per year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's gotten better since then. But yeah, in
Speaker 1: the boy up until the Clean Water Act, it was
Speaker 1: just like, hey, you know, it looked great. There a
Speaker 1: resort right with like three golf courses and a bunch
Speaker 1: of tennis.
Speaker 2: That's been such a driving force, Like it's it's like
Speaker 2: looking at land or ecosystems of being like are humans
Speaker 2: making money off of it. No, well, then drain it
Speaker 2: and re purpose it. Set it on fire and repurpose it.
Speaker 2: Stop it from burning, and repurpose it. Like, if we
Speaker 2: can't make money off of it, it can't possibly be useful.
Speaker 2: And luckily, since the environmental movement really started in the seventies,
Speaker 2: we've realized that that's not necessarily true. That even if
Speaker 2: you are just a heartless dummy, there's still a lot
Speaker 2: of benefits that humanity's given from things like wetlands that
Speaker 2: seem problematic or non productive. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was one of Dangerfield's big lines in Caddyshack,
Speaker 1: as al Cervik was a golf courses and cemeteries the
Speaker 1: two biggest waste of prime real estate.
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about wetlands. You said that they are
Speaker 1: only some of them are only wet for short periods,
Speaker 1: sometimes when they're snow, melt or just rain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are called ephemeral wetlands, which is a cool term.
Speaker 1: That's a great term. Some are wet all the time,
Speaker 1: and the key parts of being a wetland or the
Speaker 1: key characteristic is that it's either permanently or periodically flooded
Speaker 1: or wet and that the soil is got it's called
Speaker 1: hydric soil and is dominated by anaerobic processes, meaning it
Speaker 1: loves water and the plants there love water.
Speaker 2: Which is weird because you used another word that shouldn't
Speaker 2: really jibe with plants, and that's called anaerobic, which means
Speaker 2: there's very little to no oxygen present. And we'll explain
Speaker 2: why later. But the fact that there are plants means
Speaker 2: that those plants have adapted to the wetlands, yes, and
Speaker 2: it makes anaerobic.
Speaker 1: Condition hydrophytic, and we'll talk about those plants later. It's
Speaker 1: another thing I love about wetlands. It's just that it
Speaker 1: really underscores the remarkable evolution that something will go through
Speaker 1: to survive.
Speaker 2: Very cool, very very awesome. Yeap. So there's also so
Speaker 2: you hit upon something like they're not necessarily wet year round,
Speaker 2: right right. So there's a whole bunch of different types
Speaker 2: of wetlands or wetland environments that fill those that check
Speaker 2: those by. One of the ones that most people think
Speaker 2: of when they think of wetlands or coastal wetlands, like
Speaker 2: marshes and a marsh is basically like this area between
Speaker 2: inland and the ocean. It's like a transition zone, a
Speaker 2: buffer zone. And because it's because of its proximity to
Speaker 2: the ocean, it's usually salty or at least brackish, which
Speaker 2: is a mixture of salt water and freshwater. And the
Speaker 2: one of the ones that really come to mind if
Speaker 2: you're thinking coastal wetlands, you're thinking marshlands, and you're thinking
Speaker 2: title Marshlands, probably especially if you're a Pat Conroy fan.
Speaker 1: What was the name of her character that he repeats
Speaker 1: over and over in a whisper.
Speaker 2: I think I remember, Chuck. It was Bobby Jim, Bobby Jim.
Speaker 1: This is one of those scream at the at the
Speaker 1: pod player moments.
Speaker 2: Was it in? Was it in the Prince of Tides? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Lowenstein?
Speaker 2: Was that it lost? You're sure it wasn't Bobby Jim.
Speaker 2: I think it was low Was it his oh his
Speaker 2: shrinks his shrink girlfriend's name, yeah, Babs, Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't remember. He goes Lowenstein.
Speaker 1: All right, So anyway, tidle Marshes, Yes, Prince of Tides.
Speaker 1: They obviously you're it's because they're tidal. They're going to
Speaker 1: come in and out with the high and low tide.
Speaker 1: And like you said, they are generally salt water, and
Speaker 1: the salt marshes are very nutrient rich, and they do
Speaker 1: have a lot of diversity, but obviously only the kind
Speaker 1: of things that can tolerate the salt as far as
Speaker 1: plants and animals.
Speaker 2: Go, which is a pretty short list really, because salt
Speaker 2: is not conducive to life. Instead, there are some plants
Speaker 2: that have figured out how to deal with salt, but
Speaker 2: most of the time when you're looking at salt marshes,
Speaker 2: you're looking the plant life is basically grass as of
Speaker 2: some sort. Right, there's also freshwater title marshes, which they
Speaker 2: are either connected to the salt water marsh, but they're
Speaker 2: far enough inland that the salt water doesn't make its
Speaker 2: way in there, so it's a freshwater marsh, but it
Speaker 2: still is affected by the tides. And then I had
Speaker 2: no idea about this, and I used to vacation on
Speaker 2: Lake Erie. But apparently the Great Lakes are so big
Speaker 2: that they have tides themselves.
Speaker 1: You didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I even knew that, And I'm a dumb dumb when
Speaker 1: it comes to the Great Lakes.
Speaker 2: Well, Chuck, I think you got me beat. Big time.
Speaker 2: Well in this case, because I could know a million
Speaker 2: other things about the Great Lakes, and if you knew
Speaker 2: that one thing and I didn't, you have me beat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew that, And so that means that they
Speaker 1: do have those tidal marshes. The Florida Everglades are another
Speaker 1: good example. And boy, Florida just there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different types of wetlands in Florida.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of coastline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of coastline and a lot of interior wetness.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We have a lot of wetlands around our place
Speaker 2: in Florida, for sure. And there's mangroves and all sorts
Speaker 2: of stuff that we'll talk about.
Speaker 1: Well, we're at mangroves. I love those things.
Speaker 2: So mangroves, you don't think they at least deserve a
Speaker 2: short stuff because they're one of the most amazing plants
Speaker 2: of all time. But there they are. They're a type
Speaker 2: of coastal coastal wetland themselves, a mangrove forest where if
Speaker 2: you've never seen a mangro forest, they're these kind of
Speaker 2: they have a growth habit for their the shrubbery on
Speaker 2: top of like the hair that umpa lupa has in
Speaker 2: the original, the original Willy Wonka, the good one, and
Speaker 2: the trunks split out into these cool like long roots
Speaker 2: and legs that stick up out of the water, and
Speaker 2: they form this huge tangle, this riot of like shrub
Speaker 2: woody shrub, and they do all sorts of amazing things
Speaker 2: to help the aquatic life and us humans as well
Speaker 2: up on land just by being present.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're really cool looking. And this is another good one,
Speaker 1: sort of like the Origami that if you're able and
Speaker 1: you're sitting still, to look up a lot of these
Speaker 1: things as you go, because these mangrove for us, it
Speaker 1: looks like it looks like a shrub. That's like I
Speaker 1: really want to be a shrub, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to get wet, so I'm just gonna dip my legs
Speaker 1: in a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really great.
Speaker 1: It's just very cool looking. And again just the adaptability
Speaker 1: that these mangroves really want to live where they live,
Speaker 1: even though it's not very suited for them, and they've
Speaker 1: become suited for it.
Speaker 2: Right, if you've been sleeping on mangroves, Welcome to reality.
Speaker 1: Well that's a T shirt if I ever heard one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all. I could use a little work. But
Speaker 2: there's the beginnings of one in there.
Speaker 1: You also got your inland wetlands. These are not coastal
Speaker 1: in this case. We're talking about swamps and marshes and
Speaker 1: bogs and fens, f e en and marshes. A lot
Speaker 1: of these you'll find near rivers, near streams, lowland depressions,
Speaker 1: and they might periodically fill up depending on rain, what's
Speaker 1: going on, or different types of flooding that might happen,
Speaker 1: and they can be a few inches deep, they can
Speaker 1: be several feet deep.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Most of the non tidal inland marshes are ephemeral wetlands. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they're dry a lot of the year. They might
Speaker 2: fill up seasonally, they might fill up with the rains.
Speaker 2: They might fill up with the nearby river flooding. It's
Speaker 2: like my backyard and they oh, really is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't drain. Well, I've got a drainage problem.
Speaker 2: Okay, to you, it's a problem to nature. It's wonderful
Speaker 2: because we'd like things that drain really quickly and dry
Speaker 2: and then we can walk on them and the grass
Speaker 2: is fine. But there's a lot of benefits to things
Speaker 2: that take their time. Like there's something called a vernal pool,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of non tidal marsh, an ephemeral wetland,
Speaker 2: and it's basically just like say a stretch of woods
Speaker 2: that's a little bit depressed there, so that when it
Speaker 2: rains or river floods, it fills with water. And because
Speaker 2: the underlying bedrock or clay is not very poorous, it
Speaker 2: takes a while for that water to go through. But
Speaker 2: that water is also not going further downstream, so it
Speaker 2: prevents flooding from being as bad as it could because
Speaker 2: a lot of the water collects and stays there, and
Speaker 2: it also slowly recharges the ground water. And because it
Speaker 2: does get dry, it can't sustain fish, which makes it
Speaker 2: a really great nursery for things like newts and salamanders
Speaker 2: and frogs, things that fish eat their eggs, but since
Speaker 2: there's no fish, this is like a really great place
Speaker 2: for them to get a good foothole and a brand
Speaker 2: new life.
Speaker 1: You've also got your prairie potholes. This is when you
Speaker 1: should definitely look up. These are usually in the upper
Speaker 1: Midwest of the United States, the Dakota's, Minnesota, maybe Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and these are where glaciers ancient glaciers left these big
Speaker 1: depressions in the landscape and they fill up sometimes during rain,
Speaker 1: during the spring, during snow melt. And they're not small
Speaker 1: like I heard our prairie pothole and I got to
Speaker 1: vision in my head. But if you look it up online,
Speaker 1: they're beautiful and just they're very large though, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of interconnected, just these big round holes scattered through
Speaker 1: like a big open area full of water. And these
Speaker 1: are great for migrating birds because that could be a
Speaker 1: stopover that they might not have had had those potholes
Speaker 1: not been there.
Speaker 2: And when they're flying over the Dakotas, they say, look,
Speaker 2: I see Van Nostron's house, our buddy Van Nostrin. And
Speaker 2: then there's also we said that wetlands occur in all
Speaker 2: different kinds of climates. They also occur in the desert.
Speaker 2: There's something called Plia lakes, which are these depressions that
Speaker 2: apparently no one has any idea exactly how they formed.
Speaker 2: It could have been from erosion, it could have been
Speaker 2: from an ancient sinkhole. But there are depressions that are
Speaker 2: deep enough that when the seasonal rains come, the water
Speaker 2: is held in there and just like the prairie potholes.
Speaker 2: It's very useful for migratory birds to stop over at
Speaker 2: can really plays a huge role in this ecosystem where
Speaker 2: there's almost no water, and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: there's water, and it's in this nice little lake. So
Speaker 2: let's all go gather there and have a social hour,
Speaker 2: but responsibly six feet apart.
Speaker 1: That's right, Okay, I think we should take a break
Speaker 1: and we will talk a little bit about inland swamps
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, So inland swamps we promised
Speaker 1: to talk about that. These are, for my money, some
Speaker 1: of the coolest areas in the country, because I think
Speaker 1: I talked about it at some point. But I took
Speaker 1: a very special fun trip many many years ago to
Speaker 1: the Okefinoki Swamp and did one of those canoe trips
Speaker 1: where you have to rent. You know, there's no place
Speaker 1: to stop in the Okey Pinocchi Swamp if you're like,
Speaker 1: I think i'll camp here, it's like in the water, right,
Speaker 1: So they had these camping pads built up, essentially just
Speaker 1: decks that are like six feet above the water, and
Speaker 1: you have to reserve those. They're not just wide open
Speaker 1: for anyone because there's nothing else out there, so you
Speaker 1: have to reserve them for specific nights on these specific
Speaker 1: pathways or you know, paddle ways. And me and a
Speaker 1: couple of buddies did it one year and we canued
Speaker 1: from from deck to deck and very cool. It was amazing,
Speaker 1: Like one of the coolest trips I've ever taken.
Speaker 2: That is very cool was ned Baby with you.
Speaker 1: No, but you do wake up surrounded by alligators. It's
Speaker 1: a little creepy.
Speaker 2: Yes, alligators are very creepy, Like.
Speaker 1: You wake up on that pad and pee off the
Speaker 1: dock and they're growling at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you do not want to get too close
Speaker 2: because they can move faster than you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they can. It was a lot of fun though,
Speaker 1: but not for the faint of heart, because you know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize until you out there, a how bad
Speaker 1: the sun is going to beat you up because there's
Speaker 1: no shade, and b how tough it is to paddle
Speaker 1: all day long without like, you know, let me get
Speaker 1: out and stretch my legs, right, I mean, there is
Speaker 1: no getting out. You just go and go and go,
Speaker 1: and by the time you finally reach that janky deck,
Speaker 1: it is like, might as well be the plaza hotel,
Speaker 1: you know, Oh nice, But what I'm talking about in
Speaker 1: the case of the Okefinoki, I thought it was a
Speaker 1: forested or a bottom bottom land hardwood swamp, you'd think
Speaker 1: from reading this, But apparently it's called a non riverine
Speaker 1: swamp forest, right, And that is a forested swamp that
Speaker 1: fills up from non river sources, basically rain or groundwater.
Speaker 2: Right right. So the what would make a forested swamp
Speaker 2: like a bottom land hardwood swamp is a proximity to
Speaker 2: a river that floods its banks or that is just
Speaker 2: so so big it kind of spills over into some
Speaker 2: of the surrounding land, and that surrounding land is swamp.
Speaker 1: I want to look that up, though I'm not quite
Speaker 1: your name's right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's okay. It's so it's either river fed or
Speaker 2: groundwater fed or precipitation fed. And if you're talking bottomland
Speaker 2: hardwood swamps, that's or a river fed swamp. There's usually
Speaker 2: also a shrub swamp, which is a transition or buffer
Speaker 2: zone between the forested swamp and you know, somebody's backyard,
Speaker 2: which is it's just dominated by shrubs. But it's all
Speaker 2: the same thing. It's all freshwater swamp.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I bet you anything that ok Fino
Speaker 1: has several different types of these. It would be my guess,
Speaker 1: because there were full on lakes that we paddled through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that would be my guess. And I also think
Speaker 1: if I had a country band, they would we would
Speaker 1: be the Bottomland hardwood swamp rats.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good one, not bad. That sounds like
Speaker 2: an all star band, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So another kind of wetland that you're going to
Speaker 2: find all over the place, especially in Europe, which when
Speaker 2: I think of bogs and fens, I think of Europe,
Speaker 2: but apparently plenty of them in the United States too,
Speaker 2: But bogs and fens are kind of their own thing.
Speaker 2: Bogs in particular are very unique as far as wetlands go,
Speaker 2: because not only are they anaerobic, which by definition wetland
Speaker 2: is anaerobic soil, they're like very little nutrient and very
Speaker 2: high acidity. I've heard like the kind of acid that
Speaker 2: is put out by the peat that's created in the
Speaker 2: bog has the same acidity roughly of vinegar. It's like
Speaker 2: a yeah, it's really really acidic stuff, and yet some
Speaker 2: plants prefer it, like you can grow cranberries and blueberries
Speaker 2: in a bog. Sure you can preserve a body from
Speaker 2: the Iron Age forward. And do we ever coover that
Speaker 2: the bog bodies.
Speaker 1: I feel like we did. Maybe it might have been
Speaker 1: one of our video things on YouTube.
Speaker 2: Maybe mummies, because I think if I remember correctly, our
Speaker 2: Mummy episode covered more than just Egyptian mummies that they covered,
Speaker 2: like Inca mummies and the people. I'm sure we did.
Speaker 2: We saw some and when we went to uh on
Speaker 2: our UK trip, we got to visit some of those cats,
Speaker 2: like first hand, like right there in that in that glass, right,
Speaker 2: you know I have to do is smash it with
Speaker 2: a hammer and it's yours.
Speaker 1: You got a bog person, yeah, or at least whatever
Speaker 1: you can grab like a bog ear.
Speaker 2: Right just crumbles in your hand. But I was like,
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, why why are the the the
Speaker 2: bogs so great for preservation? Part of it, from what
Speaker 2: I understand, is that acidity that the bodies are actually pickled.
Speaker 2: But another part is the the aerobic life is so
Speaker 2: devoid there. There's just anaerobic bacteria and they don't decompose
Speaker 2: nearly as well as aerobic bacteria. So the decomposition doesn't
Speaker 2: set in and the remains are pickled, So like you
Speaker 2: can preserve a body in a really great state. Yeah,
Speaker 2: for a very like Toland man. You could his whiskers
Speaker 2: are still intact on his face. Yeah, like that was
Speaker 2: the level of preservation. And he was sacrificed into a bog,
Speaker 2: which is a very specific kind of wetland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a fin, like I said, it's f e
Speaker 1: n it's sort of like a bog in that it
Speaker 1: is a peat peaty wetland. But they're a little bit
Speaker 1: different than bogs. The water supply doesn't come primarily from
Speaker 1: rain and it comes from the ground, so it's not
Speaker 1: it's gonna be less acidic because I don't think we
Speaker 1: mentioned mentioned. I know it's partially because of the peat,
Speaker 1: but the acidity also comes from the fact that there's
Speaker 1: acid and rain that gets filling up, that fills up
Speaker 1: these bogs, right, But not the case in a fin.
Speaker 2: No, No, because that groundwater is able to kind of
Speaker 2: dilute it a little bit. So they're much more nutrient
Speaker 2: rich than a bog is. So they're going to have
Speaker 2: much a much wider diverse range of plants in animal life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this.
Speaker 1: I love that. This next section from Day was called
Speaker 1: other fun types of wetlands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mud flats, Yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Get your mud flat. It's another good country band.
Speaker 2: My favorite are seeps. These are just gorgeous little pieces
Speaker 2: of nature. If you ask me, it's if you have
Speaker 2: a spring that comes up out of the ground, it
Speaker 2: spills over into the ground, so the surrounding ground is wetland,
Speaker 2: and it's called a seep. That's right. It's where gnomes
Speaker 2: like go and shower.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's not like you said, it's a spring,
Speaker 1: so it's not like a creek. No, it's actually coming
Speaker 1: up from the ground. You ever drink from a natural spring?
Speaker 2: I did when I was a kid. In it my
Speaker 2: mom fired the babysitter that like took us drink from
Speaker 2: a spring? Yeah, she was like, what are you doing.
Speaker 2: It was either a spring or like a river in Ohio,
Speaker 2: and either way.
Speaker 1: Two very different things. If it was like a Cyagara river,
Speaker 1: then you're in bad shape.
Speaker 2: It was on fire while we were drinking.
Speaker 1: But I mean, we have creeks. If you're listening, you've
Speaker 1: never been to Atlanta. Atlanta has creeks all over the place,
Speaker 1: Like all of the intowln neighborhoods just are riddled with creeks.
Speaker 1: They're just sort of out of view. But like, we
Speaker 1: have a creek, you know, one hundred and twenty from
Speaker 1: our house, sure, which might have something to do with
Speaker 1: our drainage, who knows.
Speaker 2: And it's spring fed.
Speaker 1: No, it's just you know, just a part of the
Speaker 1: Atlanta probably all comes from the Chattahoochee at some point.
Speaker 2: Sure, So, Chuck, if that creek behind your house started
Speaker 2: meandering in a different direction and left a body of
Speaker 2: water where it originally flowed, it would be an ox
Speaker 2: bow lake. But if you were in Australia and you
Speaker 2: were calling it this proper Aboriginal name, you'd call it
Speaker 2: a billabong, the billabong, which I had no idea. What
Speaker 2: does that have to do with surfing?
Speaker 1: Oh? I think they just probably co opted the name
Speaker 1: and it became more associated with surf and surf gear.
Speaker 2: Then it's true. Meaning that doesn't seem right.
Speaker 1: No, let's take it back.
Speaker 2: But that's what an ox bow lake is in Australia.
Speaker 2: Among the Aborigines, it is a bill of bong, which
Speaker 2: is great.
Speaker 1: And billibong that was some like along with op was
Speaker 1: one of the prime T shirts to have when you
Speaker 1: were a kid in the eighties.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if you were cool. I had this amazing
Speaker 2: op long sleeved blue shirt that I wore with my
Speaker 2: parachute pants. Those were the best my British nights.
Speaker 1: I remember those long sleeve op shirts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're good, gorgeous, so Chuck. One of the things
Speaker 2: we've been talking about is the kind of the characteristics
Speaker 2: that make a wetland a wetland. And it's not just
Speaker 2: the fact that the soil table or the ground is
Speaker 2: either flooded or almost completely flooded up to the surface
Speaker 2: level with water. That's not the entirety of it. Like,
Speaker 2: different wetlands are characterized by by how that water gets
Speaker 2: to it. Like we said, you know, some kinds of
Speaker 2: swamps are fed by groundwater, others are fed by precipitation,
Speaker 2: some are tidal. So there's a whole group of scientists
Speaker 2: out there that are called wetland hydrologists, and what they
Speaker 2: study is how that water gets into a wetland to
Speaker 2: create a wetland, what happens to it while it's there,
Speaker 2: and then where it goes, and how all these things
Speaker 2: kind of interact to form this very unique ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we talked early on about the kind of soil.
Speaker 1: Hydric soil is saturated with water, and so if it's
Speaker 1: saturated with water, it's not going to have nearly as
Speaker 1: much oxygen. And usually oxygen and soil are in these
Speaker 1: little tiny air pockets.
Speaker 2: Remember we talked about it in our Soil episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And in the case of a wetland, then
Speaker 1: those air pockets are going to be filled with water
Speaker 1: or just collapsed all together, and then you've got your
Speaker 1: anaerobic condition. But if your plant, you need CO two
Speaker 1: and oxygen, and you'll get a little bit of that
Speaker 1: from photosynthesis in the leaves, but the roots are like,
Speaker 1: what about meat down here? I need oxygen too, And
Speaker 1: if it was an aerobic soil, like we talked about
Speaker 1: in the Soil podcast, the roots can get it from
Speaker 1: those air pockets. But in wetlands they have to really
Speaker 1: really adapt to become hydrophytic or water loving plants some
Speaker 1: pretty amazing ways.
Speaker 2: So I just have to say that this is like
Speaker 2: a lifelong mystery solved and solved in like the simplest
Speaker 2: way possible. Like it's anaerobic because there's water there instead
Speaker 2: of air. The air can't be in there because the
Speaker 2: water's there ipso facto anaerobic. I just I just think
Speaker 2: that's brilliantly simple. Yeah. Did you get that intuitively? Because
Speaker 2: I never did. I always thought it was something mysterious,
Speaker 2: like we're talking about a whole different type of soil
Speaker 2: or something else.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, No, I think I got it.
Speaker 2: Okay, well it was. I've been around for forty four
Speaker 2: years and wondered it until just now.
Speaker 1: Well I'm forty nine, so I might have worn that
Speaker 1: in the last five years.
Speaker 2: So the plants that we're talking about, like, they, like
Speaker 2: you said, the roots still need oxygen. So they've said, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I really like it here. I like this wet
Speaker 2: land area. This is a pretty amazing place to live.
Speaker 2: I'm going to change so that I can stay here.
Speaker 2: And some of the ways that plants have adapted, well,
Speaker 2: one good example is a cattail. Right. Cattail are pretty
Speaker 2: much synonymous with marshalans. Yeah, they're beautiful. They're that long,
Speaker 2: thin stem with like a big fat thing on top,
Speaker 2: like a hot dog that's ready to be roasted on
Speaker 2: the fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I grew up with those. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was the southern thing. But they can be decorative
Speaker 1: items in the home. And I grew up I feel
Speaker 1: like with a lot of cattails in vases and stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that in wasps nests, yeah, or it's nests. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So cattails have this thing called air nicum. No, I've
Speaker 2: got aeriniicima, aerne chyma, aerne chyma. I think I got it. Anyway,
Speaker 2: they're like these these channels that basically direct air from
Speaker 2: the leaves and the stem and every other part of
Speaker 2: the cattail down to the roots. It says, here you go, roots,
Speaker 2: here's some oxygen fresh from the leaf.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that cattail can have as much roots as it
Speaker 2: wants down in this anaerobic soil. It doesn't matter because
Speaker 2: it's getting its oxygen from the air through the leaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my favorites is the speckled alder. You
Speaker 1: just look up a picture of that, and they have
Speaker 1: these enlarged pores called lentisills, and they allow for the
Speaker 1: passage of oxygen directly into that wood. And if you
Speaker 1: look up a picture and you see those, you go, oh,
Speaker 1: that's what those are. That's what those are for. They
Speaker 1: look like someone took a knife and they're just tiny
Speaker 1: little horizontal slits all up and down the alder i guess,
Speaker 1: and they're breathing.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, that's creepy as heck, but it's like really neat.
Speaker 1: Little mouths, little slitty mouths.
Speaker 2: So are the grasses that we talked about growing in
Speaker 2: salt marshes. Just like an iguana sneezes out excess salts
Speaker 2: as part of digestion, things like cord grass that grow
Speaker 2: in these salt marshes, they actually excrete salts through their leaves,
Speaker 2: so they can sit there and take all the nutrients
Speaker 2: they need from this cylinic ironment and still not get
Speaker 2: overloaded with salt. It's just pretty amazing that they can
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then to me, maybe the most amazing, and
Speaker 1: this is where the mangroves kind of come back in.
Speaker 1: Although the mangroves apparently utilize all these to stick around,
Speaker 1: but the bald cypress they grow in those forested swamps
Speaker 1: where there's always water and they are deciduous conifers, and
Speaker 1: they grow this root structure that they call a knee.
Speaker 1: It's a new metaphor, but like a knee on your leg.
Speaker 1: Is how it's spelled. And they just sit above the
Speaker 1: water line and take in oxygen. And that's what those
Speaker 1: I guess, mangroves, man crooves. There's a soul train joke
Speaker 1: in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: It struck me as like a terrible jam band's name
Speaker 2: the mangroves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, you're right, that play somewhere in Florida probably probably.
Speaker 1: But the man grove uses, like I said, a lot
Speaker 1: of these tricks, and I think certainly when you see
Speaker 1: those roots, they're using those knees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is basically it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 2: way to get oxygen from the surrounding air down to
Speaker 2: the roots. The mangroves do it. The bald cypresses do it.
Speaker 2: Mangroves have all those adapt adaptations different species thing. They
Speaker 2: can do things like excrete salt, They can draw oxygen
Speaker 2: in from the environment. They have channels where they can
Speaker 2: pump oxygen from one part of the plant to the other.
Speaker 2: The one that gets me though, I'm just fascinated by bogs.
Speaker 2: So we said that there it's an acidic, anaerobic, nutrient
Speaker 2: depleted environment, and yet there's still plants that live there.
Speaker 2: And one of those plants. One kind of plant is
Speaker 2: carnivorous plants. They get their nutrients not from like the soil,
Speaker 2: but from eating bugs. Yeah, so they can just live
Speaker 2: there like a pitcher plant or a venus flytrap or
Speaker 2: something like that. Yeah, those are nature. Wasn't Venus Flytrap
Speaker 2: one of the DJs on WKRP.
Speaker 1: That's a great DJ name.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he was a great DJ.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's take our final break and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about why wetlands are important and what you can
Speaker 1: do to help them do their thing right after this.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck. So, just the fact that wetlands are as
Speaker 2: amazing as they are means that they should be saved.
Speaker 2: But there's also like a lot of benefits that we
Speaker 2: figured out. Like you said, the fifties to the seventies
Speaker 2: were a really rough time for wetlands in the United
Speaker 2: States because we were filling them in for cropland for
Speaker 2: real estate, and even previous to that, we filled in
Speaker 2: a lot of marshland in the US and built cities
Speaker 2: over them, like DC was built largely on marshland. The
Speaker 2: fact that mosquitoes tend to live in wetland areas kind
Speaker 2: of justified filling in a lot of the wetlands because
Speaker 2: we were dealing with malaria at the time, so it
Speaker 2: made a lot of sense. Get rid of the mosquitos habitat,
Speaker 2: you get rid of the mosquitos, and it worked. But
Speaker 2: we've paid a heavy price for it, because over time
Speaker 2: we've realized these wetlands provide some really important benefits to
Speaker 2: the local ecosystems and in turn humans who live around them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, helping flood conditions is a big one.
Speaker 1: They are big, big natural sponges when it comes down
Speaker 1: to it, and flooding would be way, way worse. And
Speaker 1: we still have floods obviously, but it'd be way worse
Speaker 1: if we didn't have wetlands. They'd be far more destructive
Speaker 1: if they weren't around to soak in that excess water
Speaker 1: and then kind of slowly trickle it to the water
Speaker 1: table below, and the same It was obviously true of
Speaker 1: hurricanes and big storm surges. The wetlands basically operate as
Speaker 1: big storage tanks for water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw somewhere. I can't find it now, but
Speaker 2: like it. Oh there it does. An acre of wetlands
Speaker 2: can hold up to about a million and a half
Speaker 2: gallons of water just one acre, so you got to
Speaker 2: think like that water's staying put there and it's not
Speaker 2: flooding some human habitation instead, which is a good reason
Speaker 2: to keep wetlands around just for that that buffer area,
Speaker 2: or to slow down the surge like you were saying.
Speaker 2: I also saw that we found out the same thing
Speaker 2: goes for beaver dams that they build. They're like a
Speaker 2: temporary artificial wetland, and they provide a lot of the
Speaker 2: same functions that natural or other I guess naturally occurring
Speaker 2: or growing wetlands provide too. And I think we should
Speaker 2: do a whole episode on Beaver's. Okay, oh, totally into Beaver's.
Speaker 2: So water filtration is is another is it water? I'm
Speaker 2: getting you back for the Oregon thing. So water filtration
Speaker 2: is a is another big service that wetlands provide. I
Speaker 2: don't remember where we talked about this, but we talked
Speaker 2: about it recently. Where the water oh I think it
Speaker 2: was water treatment plants. Yeah, the water's brought in and
Speaker 2: it's got all the sediment and gunk and muck, and
Speaker 2: it's cloudy and turbid, and then it slows down. They
Speaker 2: slow it down like running it through some grates or whatever,
Speaker 2: and as it slows down, the sediment that is making
Speaker 2: the water turbine and polluted and everything has a chance
Speaker 2: to settle the bottom. Well, wetlands provide that same function naturally.
Speaker 2: So when you have a bunch of like polluted water
Speaker 2: basically come through there, it slows down when it hits
Speaker 2: all those mangrove roots or tree trunks or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: and it gives it a chance for that sediment to
Speaker 2: fall to the bottom. It's gets sucked up by the
Speaker 2: tree roots and stored in the trees, or the microbial
Speaker 2: life can break a lot of that stuff down too.
Speaker 2: And there's definitely a limit to where you can very
Speaker 2: easily overload the wetlands ability to filter the water. But
Speaker 2: if you gave it like a manageable supply, that is
Speaker 2: a major service that it does. Is it cleans water.
Speaker 2: They call wetlands the kidneys of the earth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And they they've even done studies where they tried to,
Speaker 1: i guess, sort of monetize what an area of wetland
Speaker 1: might do if it were a treatment plant. And there's
Speaker 1: one in South Carolina called the Congaree Bottomland Hardwood Swamp.
Speaker 1: These are just all country bands for sure is They
Speaker 1: said that that is basically equivalent to about a five
Speaker 1: million dollar water treatment plant just sitting there being a
Speaker 1: wetland doing its thing.
Speaker 2: Thank you Nature.
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: I saw that beavers provide the dams that they build
Speaker 2: that end up being temporary wetlands that somebody estimated it's
Speaker 2: worth about one hundred grand if a human tried to
Speaker 2: build an artificial one, which we do that if you
Speaker 2: just let beavers do their thing, they will they will
Speaker 2: do the same thing for free. That's right. You don't
Speaker 2: have to pay them one hundred grand. Nope. There's also
Speaker 2: because there's so much going on in a wetland, there's
Speaker 2: so much life, they kind of form like these metropolis
Speaker 2: is for all sorts of different types of animals all
Speaker 2: the way up the food chain, including plants, animals, microbial life, worms, fish,
Speaker 2: larger predators like dolphins and alligators, and all of them
Speaker 2: are sitting there providing food for us. If you like
Speaker 2: gator tail, buddy, you better preserve those wetlands.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Dave points out here that the commercial fishing industry
Speaker 1: in the US, seventy five percent of the fish and
Speaker 1: shellfish harvested here had fish that at least had a
Speaker 1: temporary home in the wetlands, and that recreationally. If you're
Speaker 1: a recreational fish person fisher person, then ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the US fish catch is at least the breeding ground
Speaker 1: lies in the wetlands for those fish.
Speaker 2: And the same thing goes for birds too. Enormously important
Speaker 2: habitats for birds, some permanent, but also migratory too, because
Speaker 2: if you're flying along and you're a bird, and you
Speaker 2: are a water bird and you need a place to land,
Speaker 2: not only are you looking for water, but you might
Speaker 2: really enjoy a swamp because it offers protection from predators,
Speaker 2: it offers a port in the storm. It's just an
Speaker 2: all around valuable thing for birds too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine flying from Canada to Texas and you're
Speaker 1: going over Oklahoma and you're a little tired. You look down,
Speaker 1: you see one of those which ones? Were those?
Speaker 2: The prairie plias, the prairie potholes.
Speaker 1: Prairie potholes. Yeah, oh, man, sight, aren't you describing a
Speaker 1: scene in Jonathan Livingston Siegull.
Speaker 2: Probably so.
Speaker 1: So the point is we need to take care of
Speaker 1: our wetlands because they are a threatened, diverse, very useful
Speaker 1: place all over the world, especially here in the United States,
Speaker 1: and if they are threatened and if things happen, there
Speaker 1: are going to be all kinds of bad things, you know,
Speaker 1: vegetative damage, the plant life just being maybe wipened out,
Speaker 1: wiped out altogether.
Speaker 2: Storm searches being way worse, flooding being way worse especially,
Speaker 2: helps to see the value in them if you consider
Speaker 2: them a buffer zone between us and the hardest ravages
Speaker 2: of nature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you mentioned, pollution, there is a limit,
Speaker 1: but they do absorb and mitigate levels of water pollution,
Speaker 1: and they just can't take too much of us, you know.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, which, man, if there's anything that characterizes humans
Speaker 2: of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, it's too much
Speaker 2: of us. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: What can we do though, well, such donating to wetland projects.
Speaker 1: We can definitely do that.
Speaker 2: You can definitely do that. There's some good ones out there.
Speaker 2: I believe Ducks Unlimited as one of them, the Wetlands Initiative,
Speaker 2: Natural Resources Defense Council, Wetlands International. But apparently in the
Speaker 2: United States something like seventy five percent of wetlands are
Speaker 2: on privately owned property, and in the United States, we
Speaker 2: have I mean, private property is one of like the
Speaker 2: fundamental tenets of American society. So if you say, I
Speaker 2: want to fill in this wetland and kill off these beavers,
Speaker 2: you're allowed to do that. Whether that's a good idea
Speaker 2: and whether that's going to affect other people, that's a
Speaker 2: different story. So if you own private property with a
Speaker 2: wetland on it and you're doing just fine with that wetland,
Speaker 2: leave the wetland alone. It's very important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess this is where it gets a little
Speaker 1: tricky in definitions, because in plenty of places there are
Speaker 1: restrictions on building near water like this. Sure, I guess,
Speaker 1: I just don't know. Like you can't build in a
Speaker 1: flood zone. You can't. I mean, it depends on where
Speaker 1: you are, But in Atlanta you can't. And then with
Speaker 1: these all these creeks and streams in Atlanta, they have
Speaker 1: what's called stream buffers. Sure, fifty foot seventy five foot,
Speaker 1: one hundred foot and I think I think twenty five
Speaker 1: is the lowest. And for these you have to get
Speaker 1: variances to do anything, which your neighborhood has to approve.
Speaker 1: And I talk to a guy that Apparently anything over
Speaker 1: anything under seventy five feet is pretty pretty tricky to
Speaker 1: get approved. So I don't know if they're wetlands or not,
Speaker 1: but there are restrictions on stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that brings up the next point of what
Speaker 2: you and I and everybody else can do, which is
Speaker 2: vote for people for to local elected office who part
Speaker 2: of their platform is protecting wetlands. Yeah, like all of
Speaker 2: those buffer zones, all those variances, and all those prohibitions. Tho,
Speaker 2: those came from Atlanta City councils over the years that
Speaker 2: decided that wetlands needed protecting. You don't find those everywhere,
Speaker 2: but once they get put in place, they usually don't
Speaker 2: get repealed very easily. So if you make preserving wetland
Speaker 2: it's part of what you're voting for, that would have
Speaker 2: an impact for sure. Yeah, and whatever you're voting for,
Speaker 2: just vote, okay, vote especially.
Speaker 1: I know everyone the presidential elections are always the big
Speaker 1: sexy votes, but the local politics matters even more almost sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I vote for all of it. Take an interest
Speaker 2: in in your society. Yeah, okay, Well, you got anything
Speaker 2: else about wetlands. Nope, I don't either. This is a
Speaker 2: good one. I'm pretty happy with it. And since I
Speaker 2: said that, everybody, it's time for listener mail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this the first s y five K.
Speaker 2: Oh. Yeah, did you see these? Yes? Man, Congratulations everybody
Speaker 2: who took part.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So what happened was some stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Listeners got together and put together five k stuff you
Speaker 1: should know five K, and we got periodic updates from
Speaker 1: Aaron Huey, Mizelle or Myzell. I'm not sure how you
Speaker 1: pronounce it.
Speaker 2: I'm going with Mizel Mizelle.
Speaker 1: But this is this is the final email about how
Speaker 1: it went. Hey, guys, want to let you know that
Speaker 1: the s y five K is over. It was so
Speaker 1: nice to look at everyone's pictures and hear what episodes
Speaker 1: of stuff you should know they listened to because that
Speaker 1: was the idea. Imagine some people might have fudged that
Speaker 1: and listened to Mark Maron or whatever.
Speaker 2: That's not like they're disqualified.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us have suffered from a
Speaker 1: lack of human connection at this time, and the silly
Speaker 1: little virtual event gave us something to bond over. I
Speaker 1: don't think I would have tried this with any other
Speaker 1: group of people. The stuff you should Know Army is
Speaker 1: wonderful and it speaks volumes in regard to you guys.
Speaker 1: The tone that you set in your podcast, interesting and funny,
Speaker 1: carries over into your fan base and it's created a
Speaker 1: little lovely corner of the Internet. I totally agree, Aaron,
Speaker 1: And the same can be said of the movie Crush page.
Speaker 1: Very very good people, not snipy or rude and going
Speaker 1: after each other on Facebook, which is kind of what
Speaker 1: Facebook seems to be all about.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's like a garden paradise over there on
Speaker 2: the SYSK Army page.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's great.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that you made these people wonderful, but
Speaker 1: the average stuff you should know Army member is like that, interesting,
Speaker 1: funny and willing to participate in a virtual five K
Speaker 1: with a complete stranger.
Speaker 2: And they love stroop waffles.
Speaker 1: I even about thirteen stuff you should Know stickers to
Speaker 1: send out to some people as surprizes. It's just a
Speaker 1: little thing. But everyone that I've been in touch with
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Speaker 1: these small human connections. A podcast to listen to and
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Speaker 1: the event page and scroll through some of the posts,
Speaker 1: they're delightful, like the woman who did our five K
Speaker 1: at three months postpartum and crushed it, or the dad
Speaker 1: who pushed his adorable daughter in her stroller on the
Speaker 1: five K while listening to his favorite episode, which was Spam.
Speaker 1: We had first timers, ye, that was a good one.
Speaker 1: We had first timers, people recovering from injury, runners and walkers,
Speaker 1: so many smiles and stuff you should know t shirts.
Speaker 1: Sign off for now, but just writing and tell you
Speaker 1: as a success we might even do it again with love.
Speaker 1: And that is again from Aaron Huey Mozelle and that
Speaker 1: is great. Aaron, thank you for doing this and that
Speaker 1: really does speak to to the quality of our listeners
Speaker 1: in every single way.
Speaker 2: Indubitably. Yeah, thanks a lot, Aaron. It's good to hear
Speaker 2: from you and everybody who participated in the s y
Speaker 2: five K. You are the champions, our friend.
Speaker 1: Even if you listen to Mark Maren.
Speaker 2: But maybe not. What Chuck just said, that's it okay. Well,
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