COMPARING NATURAL WETLAND SOILS WITH ANTHROPOGENIC WETLAND SOILS IN NE. INDIANA

Wetlands are continually being recognized as important sanctuary for wildlife, groundwater discharge/recharge areas and highly prolific biological diverse areas. Although the above is true, natural wetlands are being destroyed at alarming rate as a result of urbanization. Attempts are made to replace these destroyed natural wetlands, but, the success rates of these anthropogenic wetlands are not very encouraging. Some of these anthropogenic wetlands are simply holes filled with water containing cattails and ducks at some point during the year. As part of assessing the success of these anthropogenic wetlands, we examined the soils in both natural and anthropogenic wetlands in NE Indiana.

Core samples were taken from five natural and five anthropogenic wetlands. These samples were weighed, dried, sieved, and size fractions weighed. Also, an urban natural wetland soil was collected along with a three-year old anthropogenic wetland.

Cumulative size fractions of the two soil groups show that in the 2mm size fraction, the anthropogenic soil accounted for 35% against the 16% for the natural wetland. The natural wetland soil is significantly different from the anthropogenic in the less than 53 micrometer size fraction. The <53 micrometer size fraction accounts for 19% of the natural wetland soil, compared to the 4.7% of the anthropogenic wetland soils. For the urban wetland soils, there was no significance difference between the natural and artificial wetlands. The urban artificial wetland had constant water supply. The above results would suggest the need for constant water supply for artificial wetlands to become established.