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Facts About Bogs

Bogs are part of the wetland ecosystem; they are waterlogged areas with high accumulations of peat (the remains of decomposed plants) and thick carpets of moss. Bogs are generally viewed as stagnant areas where high levels of acid and low levels of nutrients inhibit the growth of plants. However, bogs contain a great deal of plant life that can be economically beneficial. They can also provide archaeological data on humans who lived thousands of years ago.

Categorization
- Several different types of bogs exist. A bog supplied with water solely through rain is called ombrotrophic, while minerotrophic bogs receive water through the ground or surface runoff. A bog that forms in a topographic depression can be either ombrogenous (if fed by rainwater) or topogenous (if fed by groundwater). Limnogenous bogs are formed in lakes or slow-moving streams, while soligenous bogs form on slopes. Bogs can also be classified by the type of landform they produce: peat bog lakes, perched water bogs, peat bog streams or ombrogenous bogs.
Plant Life
- The characteristic feature of bogs is peat moss, but many other plants can be found within bogs. In lakes that are transitioning to bogs, you can find cattails, sedges, rushes and bulrushes growing along the lake border. As organic matter fills the lake and aquatic plants find it harder to survive, deciduous trees, shrubs, sphagnum moss and some sedges become the dominant plants. When peat begins to accumulate in the bog, it becomes filled with coniferous trees, but when the bog matures and becomes nutrient-poor, sphagnum moss becomes the main species. Carnivorous pitcher plants can also be found in bogs.
Economic Benefits
- Surprisingly, bogs contain two economically beneficial materials: peat and sphagnum moss. Peat is what remains when plants have fully decomposed. Because it can help soil hold on to water, it is often added to agricultural soil in the United States. In some parts of Europe, peat is burned as a source of fuel. Sphagnum moss is used to keep other plants moist during shipping due to its sponge-like ability to hold water.
Archaeological Importance
- Archaeologists in northern Europe have found evidence that humans have been visiting bogs since before the common era. Anywhere from 500 to 1,000 human bodies from the Iron Age have been found in peat bogs, many of them preserved to the point that their deaths appeared recent. The low levels of oxygen and bacterial activity found in bogs contributes to this preservation. Skeletal "bog bodies" have also been found in North America.

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