Wetland Classification

The Cranberry Peatlands Interpretive Area is a complex of wetland types.  Close to the road and on the south side it’s a treed to semi-treed bog with tamarack and black spruce, labrador tea and leatherleaf.On the north side where it was mined in the 1950’s and has recently experienced higher water levels it is most like a marsh.  About 250m down the trail the semi-treed bog grades into a poor fen where it borders on the forest edge.  Here the trees are scattered and stunted and sphagnum moss hummocks are pretty little micro-communities of bog rosemary, cranberry and leatherleaf.  Continuing along the trail the wetland simplifies into an open bog.  The trees thin out, except along remnants of the old road whee the ground is a little higher, and in the last two high water summers every footstep is accompanied with a musical burble and a sinking feeling.

Bog Ecology

One characteristic that makes a bog a bog is its position above mineral rich ground water.  Over time, the nutrient poor environment and increasing acidity exclude the plants which require the richer environment of a fen.  If you consider diversity at the species level, bogs don’t seem like very happening places because they’re species poor.  But they’re a unique community type and a quiet testament to the saying “nature abhors a void”.  Once the moss mat builds above water level, minerals no longer come to the bog environment from ground water but come from rainfall.  Sphagnum mosses make conditions more extreme, actively acidifying their environment by taking up calcium and magnesium ions and releasing hydrogen ions.  This enables them to survive even near the basic waters common in Alberton.  Many plants cannot tolerate bog conditions but bogs on the whole contribute to biodiversity by serving as refuges for highly specialized plants like the Pitcher Plant, by controlling drainage and storing water and by providing a greater range of water chemistry and physical habitats than would exist without them.