PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 6: Development of landscape heterogeneity at multiple scales in wetlands
Organizer(s): B Warner and A van der Valk
Monday, August 8, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 516 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Patterns and mechanisms of wetland differentiation in the landscape of Vera Cruz, Mexico.

Moreno-Casasola, Patricia¹, Warner, Barry², ¹ Instituto de Ecologia A.C., Xalapa 91000, Vera Cruz, Mexico² University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT- At least 10% of the wetlands in Mexico are situated in the state of Vera Cruz, located on the central Gulf coast, even though the state comprises only 3.7% of the country. It is estimated that about two-thirds of the wetlands are freshwater, and the majority of these occur on the flat coastal plain between the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico. The remaining one-third are brackish water and marine wetlands. The landscape is a mosaic of sand beaches, dunes, freshwater dune lakes and open water wetlands, seagrass and estuarine communities, mangroves, freshwater wetlands, inundated floodplains and savannas, and dry, evergreen tropical forest. The region has been intensively used for agriculture by humans for the last 1000 years. Ecosystem degradation and declining productivity, deforestation, soil erosion, community fragmentation, invasion of exotic species, contamination and filling up of lakes, lowering of regional groundwater tables, and dry climatic conditions for the last 10 years have transformed the natural landscape. We present a regional wetland classification system for Vera Cruz. Further, we examine the ecological relationships between characteristic wetland types, and the interplay of intrinsic and extrinsic factors for giving rise to and shaping the great diversity of wetland types that characterize this important wetland landscape of Mexico.

Key words: wetlands, Vera Cruz, Mexico, Gulf of Mexico