Fresh Water Aquatic Habitats

Question 1

Lake

Answer 1

Non-forested, permanent, greater than 10 acres, deeper than 6 feet

Question 2

Pond

Answer 2

Basically small lakes - ideally want half real, half “fake”

Question 3

River & Stream

Answer 3

Permanently flowing body of water, contained within a stream channel - pools & riffles

Question 4

Marsh

Answer 4

Shallow basin up to 3 feet

Question 5

Swamp

Answer 5

Wetland with a lot of trees, has circulation of water - Everglades

Question 6

Sedge Meadow

Answer 6

Flat water saturated areas next to a river or late that is dominated by sedges - looks like grass but it is not

Question 7

Bog

Answer 7

Not a sediment, like a water bed, low nutrient input. Very acidic. Little circulation.

Question 8

Littoral zone

Answer 8

Near the shore where plants can grow

Question 9

Limnetic zone

Answer 9

Surface water layer in offshore areas around the littoral zone

Question 10

Photic zone

Answer 10

Lighted and usually well mixed portion that extends from the lake surface down to where the light level is 1% of that at the surface

Question 11

Aphotic zone

Answer 11

Positioned low in the photic zones to bottom of the lake where levels are too low for photosynthesis

(Recall that respiration occurs at all depths. Therefore the aphotic zone is a region of oxygen consumption.)

Question 12

Compensation depth

Answer 12

Depth at which rates of photosynthesis and respiration are equal

Question 13

Benthic zone

Answer 13

Lowest zone, soil layer right below the water

Question 14

Thermocline

Answer 14

Middle vertical temp zone - in some lakes trout and salmon prefer this zone (fish and other aquatic life are strongly affect by temp so they align themselves with different vertical zone)

Question 15

Epilimnion

Answer 15

Top vertical temp zone

Question 16

Hypolimnion

Answer 16

Bottom vertical temp zone

Question 17

Stratified

Answer 17

When a lake has layers

Question 18

Lake profile

Answer 18

Fall & Spring - things are uniform, fish can go wherever and equally distributed, during the summer fish are at the epilimnion (vertical stratification only when wind mixes ep vs Spring, wind mixes whole lake) + Winter - coldest at the top, no mixing & lowest oxygen

Question 19

Ephemeral pond

Answer 19

Not permanent pond, important to have these so there are habitats w/o predators (IE - frogs)

Question 20

Riparian zone

Answer 20

Along the shore

Question 21

Emergent aquatic vegetation

Answer 21

Cat tails

Question 22

Floating aquatic vegetation

Answer 22

Lily pads

Question 23

Submerged aquatic vegetation

Answer 23

Underwater

Question 24

Sphagnum moss

Answer 24

Peat moss (tied to bogs forming when a lake slowly fills with plant debris, moss and other veg grow out from the plants edge until eventually covering the lake’s entire surface + bogs can also form from moss covering dry land preventing precipitation from evaporating)