EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Explanation:  We are flying in an Otter floatplane over the Alexander Archipelago of Tongass National Forest in coastal southeast Alaska.  Below us appears an opening in the conifer canopy, with swamps, sphagnum moss bogs, and open water.  This is Alaska muskeg country during summer thaw.

You wouldn't want to build a house -- or a road -- on saturated muskeg, but it is a unique home to many plant and wildlife species, including nesting sandhill cranes, osprey, gulls, and many other species.  Studies, though, have found that black bears and marten avoid muskeg habitat, but another study located adult bull woodland caribou in black spruce muskeg habitats.  Other studies in Glacier Bay, Alaska have found that plant species richness reaches a maximum in the muskeg steady state following the retreat of glaciers.

Studies of a 13,000-year prehistory by Hansen and Engstrom (1996) and by others in southeastern Alaska revealed that, because of climate change, open muskeg became widespread about 7,000 years ago and allowed lodgepole pine to reinvade the region after being absent for 2,000 years.  So maybe the distribution and vegetation communities of muskeg could serve as an indicator of impending future climate change.

The word muskeg was a Cree or Chippewa word maskeg or muskeg meaning grassy bog.  

Information:
     Hansen, B. C. S., and D. R. Engstrom.  1996.  Vegetation history of Pleasant Island, southeastern Alaska, since 13,000 yr BP.  Quaternary Research 46(2):161-175. 
       Here is a listing of selected studies on muskeg ecology, in MS Word document format.