Moss Mat In Bog

With continued thickening trees may begin to grow the first usually being larch larix.
Moss mat in bog. The food web is rather simple in bogs. The acid peat locks up most of the nutrients offering little to support grazing animals and their predators. The vegetative mats are held together by their root systems. From a distance it may be difficult to detect the original boundary between the.
The western siberian lowlands cover more. Black spruce may invade in the last stages of bog development. The bog vegetation mostly sphagnum moss anchored by sedges such as carex lasiocarpa forms a floating mat approximately half a meter thick on the surface of the water or on top of very wet peat. Bobbing up and down and undulating like a waterbed.
Bog laurel carnivorous round leaved and spatulate leaved sundew and pitcher plants leatherleaf cranberries and bog club moss. A quaking bog is a form of bog occurring in wetter parts of valley bogs and raised bogs and sometimes around the edges of acidic lakes. A boardwalk over the mat enables visitors to enjoy the bog s unusual flora. All of the larger plants on the bog are growing on the sphagnum moss.
They often develop in poorly draining lake basins created by glaciers during the most recent ice age. Others form loose mats in colours of pink red copper and yellow. Lake filling occurs in small lakes with minimal wave action where gradual peat accumulation results in the development of a bog mat that can fill the basin or occur as a floating mat or grounded mat. A floating mat of vegetation consisting primarily of sphagnum moss can cover the surface of a bog as in the above image.
The formation of floating mats is a process of sedimentation in water bodies. A bog is a freshwater wetland of soft spongy ground consisting mainly of partially decayed plant matter called peat bogs are generally found in cool northern climates. These ones are bright green. The world s largest wetland is a series of bogs in the siberia region of russia.
Plant life on the bog. Bog moss lawns occur within raised bogs and fens typically in the wettest areas such as bog pools boggy pond margins and water tracks. They may form extensive areas on the higher areas of raised bogs. Still others grow as single plants surrounded by water in bog pools.
In bog ponds floating mats of peat moss form as water levels fall and nutrients accumulate. In eutrophic waters the formation of floating mats is caused by underwater peat that floats to the surface and is colonised by plants. The most typical bryophytes are sphagnum cuspidatum and bog mat liverwort. With the growth of the moss a true bog is formed and various heaths invade the mat especially chamaedaphne.
Insectivorous bladderwort can be seen in full yellow bloom in july. The stick in the photo has been used to measure the depth of the floating mat which in some instances could be several. The moss mat has advanced over the last 6000 years to gradually fill in the pond with plant remains.