ABSTRACT
Because of the presence of ample water, the wetland environment is generally characterized by a high diversity and abundance of plants. In many cases, wetland plant communities include multiple vertical strata, ranging from groundcover species to shrubs, and subcanopy trees to canopy tree species. Wetland plant diversity is important in determining wildlife diversity because of the creation of niches associated with differing vegetative structure, reproduction strategies, flowering and seeding phenologies, gross productivity, and rates of decomposition (Mitsch and Gosselink, 2000b).
