WATER+Mission+8

**Local Aquatic Habitats**

We live in the River Rouge watershed so we chose that for our local aquatic habitat. A river habitat refers to the plants, rocks, dirt, which provides an environment for the organisms that live in the stream. We went o Linden Park to examine the River Rouge. In some parts of the park the riparian Zone is just a few feet thick, while in other parts we had to climb through trees and bushes to get to the river. The riparian zone refers to the areas that border the body of water, and the plants that grow there are called riparian vegetation. Healthy riparian zones are important to a healthy in-stream habitat since both provide habitat for different fish and land animals. Trees provide shelter and food for birds and insects, as well as, shade for the river. Shrubs help scatter rain drops to prevent erosion, and filter out the sediments from the run-off water before it reaches the river

The River Rouge ecosystem provides homes for many birds, amphibians, fish and repltiles.



A Healthy river ecosystem has a fod chain that provides food for all.Changes can upset the river ecosystem. If pollution like DDT or mercury gets into the river it affects all of the animals in the food chain.

We went to do the river to determine how healthy it was: Our trip to Linden Park