Moist-soil wetlands are seasonally flooded areas that produce early-succession plant communities of grasses, sedges, and other herbaceous plants. Moist-soil wetland plants provide food and cover for a diversity of wildlife species, including waterfowl and other waterbirds. Thus, conservation and management of moist-soil plants has become a major component of wildlife conservation efforts in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley and elsewhere in North America. The authors combined their extensive experience working in managed and unmanaged wetlands from southern Missouri to southern Louisiana to produce this beautifully illustrated identification guide. A detailed, yet user friendly field guide to identify moist-soil plants of the Mississippi Alluvial Valley has not been available until now.

 

Management to encourage the growth of moist-soil plants is a common conservation strategy used by state, federal, and private landowners to increase food and cover for wildlife. Thus, landowners must be able to identify moist-soil plants to meet their wildlife conservation goals. Landowners, scientists, wildlife biologists, and students alike will welcome this useful resource which includes 600 detailed color photographs of plants, images of seeds and tubers, and other helpful information to aid in identification. The book includes subsections of major plant groups occurring in moist-soil wetlands including aquatics, grasses, broadleaves, sedges and rushes, trees and shrubs, vines, and agricultural crops.

 

Michael L. Schummer is a scientist with Long Point Waterfowl, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of waterfowl and wetlands throughout the lower Great Lakes. Heath M. Hagy is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. K. Sarah Fleming is a regional biologist with Ducks Unlimited, Inc. Joshua C. Cheshier is a directional driller with Halliburton, Sperry Drilling Services. James T. Callicutt is a research associate with Mississippi State University.

 

ISBN: 9781617031465

Paperback

276 pages

6 x 9

Bibliography, Index, Illustrated, Maps

University Press of Mississippi, 2011