Designed as a textbook, this volume is an important, up-to-date, authoritative, and accessible survey in ecology of freshwater and estuarine wetlands. Prominent wetland scholars address the physical environment, geomorphology, biogeochemistry, soils, and hydrology of both freshwater and estuarine wetlands. Careful syntheses review how hydrology and chemistry constrain wetlands plants and animals. In addition, contributors document the strategies employed by plants, animals, and bacteria to cope with stress. Focusing on the ecology of key organisms, each chapter is relevant to wetland regulation and assessment, wetland restoration, how flood pulses control the ecology of most wetland complexes, and how human regulation of flood pulses threatens wetland biotic integrity. Ideal for the classroom, this book is a fundamental resource for anyone interested in the current state of our wetlands.

List of Contributors
Preface

1. Ecology of Freshwater and Estuarine Wetlands:
An Introduction
What Is a Wetland?
Why Are Wetlands Important?
Wetland Loss and Degradation
What This Book Covers
2. Wetland Geomorphology, Soils, and Formative Processes
Wetland Geomorphology and Wetland Soils
Specific Wetland Types: Formative Processes, Geomorphology, and Soils
Conclusions
3. Wetland Hydrology
Hillslope Hydrologic Processes
Geomorphic Controls on Wetland Hydrology
Wetland Water Budgets
Hydropattern
Hydraulics and Water Quality
Effects of Land Use Changes on Wetland Hydrology
4. Abiotic Constraints for Wetland Plants and Animals
Hydrology
Salinity
5. Biogeochemistry and Bacterial Ecology of Hydrologically
Dynamic Wetlands
Chapter Themes
A Primer on Wetland Bacteriology
The Hydrology of Temporary Wetlands
Biogeochemical Cycles in Temporary Wetlands
Organic-matter Decay in Temporary Wetlands
Nutrient Uptake and Release in Temporary Wetlands
Integration and Synthesis: Biogeochemistry, Hydrology, and Sediments in Temporary Wetlands
Integration and Synthesis: Biogeochemistry, Hydrology, and Aquatic Plants in Temporary Wetlands
6. Development of Wetland Plant Communities
Importance of Hydrologic Conditions
Plant Community Development
Plant Distributions in Wetlands
Primary Productivity
Limiting Nutrients in Wetlands
Characteristics of Selected Wetlands
7. Wetland Animal Ecology
Trophic Ecology
Community Ecology
Focal Wetland Animals
8. Wetland Ecosystem Processes
Wetlands as Ecosystems
Generation and Retention of High Amounts of Organic Matter
Fluxes of Organic Matter and Energy in Aquatic Ecosystems
Attached Microbial Community Metabolism and Interactions
Modulation of Macrophytes and Periphyton by Mortality and Losses: What Do They Mean to Higher Trophic Levels?
Defensive Mechanisms and Allelochemical “Communication” Within Wetlands
Potential Effects of Global Changes in Climate and Related Environmental Conditions on Ecosystem Processes
9. United States Wetland Regulation and Policy
Wetland Definitions
Federal Jurisdiction of Wetlands
Wetland Delineation
Wetland Functions and Values
Functional Assessment Methods
Summary
10. Wetland Restoration
Catastrophic Versus Chronic Degradation
Enabling Restoration Efforts
Restore What?
Identifying Feasible Goals
How Theory Can Help
Restoring Functions at the Watershed Scale
Site-based Tactics
Surprises and Their Lessons
Evaluating Progress and Outcomes
Long-term Stewardship
Adaptive Restoration: An Approach That Simultaneously Advances Ecology and Accomplishes Restoration
11. Flood Pulsing and the Development and Maintenance of Biodiversity
in Floodplains
Characterization of Flood-pulsing Systems
Definition and Classification of Wetland Organisms
Strategies to Survive Flooding and Drought
Speciation and Extinction: The Impact of Paleoclimatic History on Species Diversity
Species Exchange Between Floodplains and Permanent Water Bodies
Species Exchange Between Floodplains and Terrestrial Habitats
Species Exchange Between Different Floodplains
Species Exchange Between Intertidal Wetlands and Other Habitats
Altering the Flood Pulse: Impacts on Biodiversity
Conclusions
12. Consequences for Wetlands of a Changing Global Environment
Assumptions
Effects on Carbon Balance
Effects on Species Composition and Redistribution
Effects on Wetland Types
Management and Policy Options
Summary

Literature Cited
Index

Darold Batzer is Professor of Entomology at the University of Georgia. He is the coeditor of Invertebrates in Freshwater Wetlands of North America and Bioassessment and Management of North American Freshwater Wetlands and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Wetlands. Rebecca Sharitz is Professor of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia and Senior Ecologist at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. She is the coeditor of Freshwater Wetlands and Wildlife.

"An exciting new wetlands book with an international flavor that provides a synthesis of basic and applied research. Written by experts in the field the volume focuses on ecosystem processes, plant and animal ecology and wetland restoration."—Curtis J. Richardson, Director of the Duke University Wetland Center.

"An excellent interdisciplinary team provides a fresh synthesis that has continuity among chapters, is refreshingly honest and cautionary, and is responsive to societal pressures and opportunities. A road forward from society's dismal swamp of past behaviors and missed opportunities."—R. Eugene Turner, Louisiana State University

"There's everything here from biogeography, climate change, wetland soils and hydrology to descriptions of wetland types and their biota viruses, bacteria, all the way up to the charismatic megafauna and megaflora, to chapters on wetland regulation and policy, restoration, and biodiversity."—Stephen Threlkeld, University of Mississippi