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Hansville Greenway Ecosystems
Estuary Habitat
Teacher Expert Group
Pictorial Notes (See picture file cards)
Defining Characteristics
Soon, you will standing in a Pacific Northwest icon! The Puget Sound is the second-largest
estuary in the United States. An estuary is a body of water formed where freshwater from
rivers and streams flows into the ocean, mixing with the seawater. Estuaries and the lands
surrounding them are places of transition from land to sea, and from freshwater to saltwater.
Although influenced by the tides, estuaries are protected from the full force of ocean waves,
winds, and storms by land, mud, or sand that surround them. Estuaries create a rich nursery
environment for salmon and other species. Tens of thousands of birds, mammals, fish, and
other wildlife rely on estuarine habitats to live, feed, and reproduce.
Producers
Producers are at the beginning of every food web. As you know, all energy comes from the sun
(light energy), and plants make food with that energy. Producers are organisms that convert
carbon dioxide into sugars for their food through the process of photosynthesis. Plants also
make other nutrients for other organisms to eat.
Plankton, which comes from the Greek word for “drifters,” are visible only with a magnifying
glass or microscope and drift with the prevailing currents. These tiny creatures occur
everywhere in the ocean. They make up the bulk of the plants and animals in the ocean and
form the basis of the marine food chain. There are two types of plankton. Phytoplankton is
plant plankton and zooplankton is animal plankton.
As you wander the intertidal zone, you will see a variety of producers. You may see what
appears to be brown seaweed but is really a mass of plant material called diatoms. Another
seaweed-appearing producer is eelgrass, a blooming underwater grass which spreads by roots.
Kelp also abounds along shorelines. Bull kelp, a seaweed, is the largest kelp and can grow 200
feet long in one summer! Be sure to bring your measuring tape and find the king of the bull
kelp!
Consumers
A consumer is an organism that must eat another organism to obtain food. Consumers eat
producers or other consumers and can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. The first level
of consumers are called primary consumers. These animals eat plants and are called herbivores.
Secondary consumers eat animals and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and
animals are called omnivores.
The entire estuarine environment—shallow waters, mudflats, and salt marshes—serves as a
major resting and refueling station for thousands of ducks, geese and shorebirds. These are just
a few of the species that stop here to graze on seeds, grasses, and small invertebrates. Seals,
waterfowl, and many species of fish feast on the rich and abundant food sources found in
estuary waters. This zone is also very important for salmon. Young salmon travel downstream
to estuaries where they feed and grow rapidly. Here is where young salmon adjust to salt water
and get ready for their ocean journey.
Decomposers
Decomposers consume other organisms that have died. Decomposers are nature’s “trash
collectors.” Decomposers include fungi and bacteria as well as invertebrates such as
earthworms and insects. They all work to break down the structures that made up any dead
organism, plant or animal. In the process of breaking down the dead plants and animals,
decomposers do two important things:
 Like all animals, they use oxygen to gain energy and drive their own life processes.
 They release nutrients back into the environment for other organisms to use.
Examples of estuary decomposers include flies, snails, crabs, and many worms. These
decomposers feed on the detritus, the decaying plant and animal material, found in the
estuary.
Human Impact
Estuaries serve as a buffer protecting shorelines from erosion and flooding. Dredging destroys
eelgrass and eliminates food and shelter for an entire ecosystem. Stresses caused by overuse of
resources and unchecked land use practices have resulted in multiple problems for the Puget
Sound estuaries:
 unsafe drinking water,
 beach and shellfish bed closings,
 harmful algal blooms,
 unproductive fisheries,
 loss of habitat,
 fish and wildlife kills,
 and a host of other human health and natural resource problems.
Global warming is melting glaciers and heating ocean waters, which causes the sea levels to
rise. The effects this will have on the Puget Sound estuaries include the loss of beaches and
marshes. Tidal flats will be flooded, and salmon will be in danger.
As our population grows, the demands imposed on our natural resources increase. So too does
the importance of protecting these resources for all their natural and economic values.
Retrieved on March 19, 2013
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/sea/pugetsound/beaches/estuary.html
Hansville Greenway Ecosystems
Forest Habitat
Defining Characteristics
Forests occupy one third of the Earth’s land area and are found on all corners of the globe.
While there are a few different types of forests, all forests have trees as the dominant plant
type. Forests are divided into three different layers: the forest floor, the understory and the
canopy. Look at your feet. The forest floor is composed of soil, dead plants and animals, and
small plants such as grasses and wildflowers. Look around you at eye level. The understory
contains small trees or bushes and is also called the shrub layer. Look overhead. The canopy is
made up of the leaves and branches of the trees that dominate the forest.
Producers
Producers are at the beginning of every food web. As you know, all energy comes from the sun
(light energy), and plants make food with that energy. Producers are organisms that convert
carbon dioxide into sugars for their food through the process of photosynthesis. Plants also
make other nutrients for other organisms to eat.
Both coniferous and deciduous trees grow in the forest at Buck Lake. Coniferous trees are conebearing trees. They are evergreen, and they are plentiful in Washington, which is why our state
is nicknamed the Evergreen State. The primary conifer at the Hansville Greenway is the
Western red cedar, yet Douglas fir, noble fir, and hemlock are also present.
Deciduous trees lose their leaves in the fall. Deciduous literally means “falling off.” The primary
deciduous tree at the Hansville Greenway is the red alder. The reason it is called a red alder is
because the inside of the trunk is a red-orange color. Other native shrubs and trees of the
Hansville Greenway forest habitat include snowberry, elderberry, red-flowering currant, vine
maple, and Pacific dogwood. You might have any of these trees and shrubs in your garden at
home. In the understory of the forest you will see salmonberry, stinging nettle, elderberry and
sword fern. The one plant that you will see on the top of nearly every stump and downed log is
red or blue huckleberry.
As the alder and coniferous trees die, there is more downed wood providing nursery logs where
new plants sprout. On the forest floor is duff—decaying organic matter. Have you ever noticed
when you are walking through the forest that there are little patches with nothing growing? So
little light makes it way down to some parts of the forest floor that nothing can grow there.
Consumers
A consumer is an organism that must eat another organism to obtain food. Consumers eat
producers or other consumers and can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. The first level
of consumers are called primary consumers. These animals eat plants and are called herbivores.
Secondary consumers eat animals and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and
animals are called omnivores.
Many insects and amphibians live in downed trees. Dead or dying trees that are still standing up
are called snags, and woodpeckers drill for insects on the trunk and branches of these snags.
Cavity-nesting birds, like owls, live in holes left by woodpeckers.
Deer use trees for cover to hide from predators. (The only real predators for deer at the
Hansville Greenway today are humans, so they hide from us.) Deer also stay in the trees to stay
warmer. They eat leaves and berries from the shrubbery. Bears also live in the forest, eating
berries there. Eagles, hawks, and other raptors roost in the trees. This is bad news for the
squirrels that inhabit the trees and forest floor.
Decomposers
Decomposers consume other organisms that have died. Decomposers are nature’s “trash
collectors.” Decomposers include fungi and bacteria as well as invertebrates such as
earthworms and insects. They all work to break down the structures that made up any dead
organism, plant or animal. In the process of breaking down the dead plants and animals,
decomposers do two important things:
 Like all animals, they use oxygen to gain energy and drive their own life processes.
 They release nutrients back into the environment for other organisms to use.
As you are walking through the forest, you may come across a dead log that is falling apart and
full of dirt. That is because decomposers have been eating and digesting that log for several
years, turning it into dirt that is wonderful for plants.
Bacteria is a decomposer in the forest. Bacteria lives in the gut of animals (including us) and
help us to digest food. When the animal dies, the bacteria starts to digest the dead animal.
Fungi are the main decomposers in the forest ecosystem. Mushrooms are the most abundant
fungi in the forest. There is a variety of mushrooms in this habitat: some grow on nursery logs,
some grow like a shelf on the trunk of a tree, and some grow on the ground. The part of the
mushroom you see is the fruit of the fungus. The body of the fungus is growing in the tree or
under the ground.
Another decomposer in the forest is the slug. Slugs eat the decaying detritus that no consumer
wants to eat. They poop out nutrients that enrich the soil so that plants can grow. There slime
is good for them, by the way! It makes it hard for predators like to eat them. The slime makes
them gag. (If you tried to eat a slug, wouldn’t you gag too?) And the slime makes it easier for
them to slide over rough surfaces like tree bark or prickly dried leaves.
Human Impact
People logged some of the areas around the Hansville Greenway in the 1990s and then planted
a few scattered Douglas firs. Alders self-planted, which means their seeds blew in and they
grew naturally, and the alders crowded out most of the Douglas fir seedlings. Western red
cedar also self-planted, so there are a few cedars scattered among the alders.
Humans introduced Himalayan blackberries to the region to grow in gardens. Birds ate the
berries and pooped out the seeds. Himalayan blackberries sprang up all over everywhere! One
thing people need to do now is to work together to remove the Himalayan blackberries from
the Buck Lake.
Humans also need to plant more shade-tolerant trees—more Western red cedar plus Sitka
spruce, Western hemlock, and yew. When we plant new trees, we need to make sure to plant
them beyond the drip line of existing trees.
Hansville Greenway Ecosystems
Pond Habitat
Defining Characteristics
A pond is a body of standing water that is either natural or man-made. Some definitions of a
pond simply say it is smaller than a lake. Some definitions say that a pond is more shallow than
a lake—shallow enough that light reaches the bottom throughout the pond. Having light reach
the bottom means ponds contain aquatic plants that grow all along their bottom. A variety of
animals live in and around ponds.
The Upper and Lower Hawk’s Ponds at the Hansville Greenway are beaver ponds. Beavers
originally created the ponds. You can see the beaver dams, and you can see marks on trees and
shrubs where beavers gnawed them.
Producers
Producers are at the beginning of every food web. As you know, all energy comes from the sun
(light energy), and plants make food with that energy. Producers are organisms that convert
carbon dioxide into sugars for their food through the process of photosynthesis. Plants also
make other nutrients for other organisms to eat.
Lower Hawk’s Pond is really shallow with lots of vegetation growing in the water, under the
water, and up out of the water. One important producer in the pond is a groups of organisms
called phytoplankton. Plankton, which comes from the Greek word for “drifters,” are visible
only with a magnifying glass or microscope and drift on the water. These tiny creatures occur
everywhere in the pond. Along with algae they form the basis of the pond’s food chain. The
microscopic algae that grows in the pond water and floats on top of pond water often gives it a
greenish appearance.
Submerged plants are the plants that grow completely under water while floating plants are
those plants that float on the surface of the water like water lilies. Emergent plants grow in
shallow water with their stems and leaves above the surface of the water; one example would
be cattails. Other types of producers in the pond ecosystem are the shore plants that grow in
the wet soil by the edge of the pond. Most of the ones you can see are natives except for some
holly bushes.
Consumers
A consumer is an organism that must eat another organism to obtain food. Consumers eat
producers or other consumers and can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. The first level
of consumers are called primary consumers. These animals eat plants and are called herbivores.
Secondary consumers eat animals and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and
animals are called omnivores.
The Upper and Lower Hawk’s Pond is the habitat for ducks and other waterfowl who feed on
insects and grass. Because they eat both plants and animals they are omnivores. The pond is
also home to swallows and other songbirds who eat insects. The swallows eat massive
quantities of mosquitoes, which is very helpful to the humans visiting! Frogs and other
amphibians are also live in the pond as do a variety of fish.
Large mammals, like bear and deer, avoid humans, so you probably will not see them. They
hide in the forest instead of coming to the pond during the day.
Decomposers
Decomposers consume other organisms that have died. Decomposers are nature’s “trash
collectors.” Decomposers include fungi and bacteria as well as invertebrates such as
earthworms and insects. They all work to break down the structures that made up any dead
organism, plant or animal. In the process of breaking down the dead plants and animals,
decomposers do two important things:
 Like all animals, they use oxygen to gain energy and drive their own life processes.
 They release nutrients back into the environment for other organisms to use.
Examples of decomposers in the pond habitat are bacteria in the water or bacteria and fungi in
the soil under the water or in the mud around the pond. Both the bacteria and the fungi help to
break down the dead and decaying organisms in and around the pond.
Human Impact
Humans buy holly bushes to plant in their gardens. Birds eat the berries and poop out the seeds
and plant them all over. Hollies are considered invasive in our area. You can see holly bushes
growing up around the ponds.
Although beavers created this 17 acre pond, no fresh evidence of beaver has been seen at this
pond in several years. What happened to the beavers? We do not know. Stumps in the water
these days have been shaped by saws and not by beavers.
Hansville Greenway Ecosystems
Lake Habitat
Defining Characteristics
A lake is a body of standing water that is either natural or man-made. Some definitions of a lake
simply say it is larger than a pond. Some definitions say that a lake is deeper than a pond—deep
enough that a lake has aphotic zones, places where light does not reach the bottom of the lake.
Having no light reach parts of the bottom means the lake has places where no aquatic plants
grow along the bottom. A variety of animals live in and around ponds.
Lakes are formed when water collects in a basin, and they must have a continual source of
water or they will dry up. Lakes generally also have a river or stream that they drain into. Lakes
get old naturally over time, filling in with sediments, nutrients, plants, and algae. They also
become shallower. This aging process can take hundreds to thousands of years.
Buck Lake is a natural 20-acre lake that is 24 feet deep and drains north to Admiralty Inlet.
Producers
Producers are at the beginning of every food web. As you know, all energy comes from the sun
(light energy), and plants make food with that energy. Producers are organisms that convert
carbon dioxide into sugars for their food through the process of photosynthesis. Plants also
make other nutrients for other organisms to eat.
Shoreline plants grow along the Buck Lake shoreline above the water surface. One example is
the cattail. Cattails provide habitat for many species. The rhizomes, heart, and base of the
leaves are edible—there is archeological evidence that humans may have eaten the rhizomes in
Europe as far back as 30,000 years ago! Cattails have also been use for medicinal purposes.
Blue-green algae is a main photosynthesizer in Buck Lake. If the algae population in the lake is
dense, then the water will become green or brown in color.
Another important producer in the Buck Lake habitat is a groups of organisms called
phytoplankton. Plankton, which comes from the Greek word for “drifters,” are visible only with
a magnifying glass or microscope and drift on the water. These tiny creatures occur everywhere
in the lake. Along with the algae they form the basis of the lake’s food chain. Keep in mind that
there are two types of plankton. Phytoplankton is plant plankton and zooplankton is animal
plankton.
Consumers
A consumer is an organism that must eat another organism to obtain food. Consumers eat
producers or other consumers and can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. The first level
of consumers are called primary consumers. These animals eat plants and are called herbivores.
Secondary consumers eat animals and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and
animals are called omnivores.
Supposedly, Buck Lake was named for the deer that drink from its shore. Deer are primary
consumers. You might also see rabbits at Buck Lake, another primary consumer.
Secondary consumers, the carnivores, include all the eagles, hawks, osprey, and other birds of
prey. The lake is also filled with rainbow trout and bass, which are also carnivores—they eat
insects.
Many other bird species populate Buck Lake including water birds like ducks and geese and
songbirds like red-wing blackbirds and swallows. Some are carnivores and some are omnivores.
Pay attention. Can you see the ducks nibbling the grass? Can you see the swallows swooping
after the mosquitoes?
Decomposers
Decomposers consume other organisms that have died. Decomposers are nature’s “trash
collectors.” Decomposers include fungi and bacteria as well as invertebrates such as
earthworms and insects. They all work to break down the structures that made up any dead
organism, plant or animal. In the process of breaking down the dead plants and animals,
decomposers do two important things:
 Like all animals, they use oxygen to gain energy and drive their own life processes.
 They release nutrients back into the environment for other organisms to use.
Examples of decomposers in the lake habitat are bacteria in the water or bacteria and fungi in
the soil under the water or in the mud around the lake. Both the bacteria and the fungi help to
break down the dead and decaying organisms in and around the lake.
When things die in the water, they sink down to the bottom of the lake. Decomposers go to
work, and as they decompose the dead matter, they use oxygen as part of their respiration and
as part of the process of decomposition. The level of oxygen goes down at the bottom of the
lake. Remember too that there is little or no light at the bottom of the lake. With no light and
no oxygen, there is no photosynthesis possible at the bottom of the lake, which is why no
plants grow there even though the soil may be very rich down there.
Human Impact
Lakes get old naturally over time, filling in with sediments, nutrients, plants, and algae. As they
age, they become more shallow. This aging process may take hundreds to thousands of years.
With human influence, though, lakes can fill in faster—sometimes in only a few decades.
One major threat to lakes involves the excessive growth of primary producers—that is, too
much algae growing in the waters of the lake. People spread fertilizer on their lawns.
Unfortunately, some of the fertilizer washes downhill and winds up in the lake. The nutrients in
the fertilizer, meant to feed the lawn, feed the algae instead, making the algae grow like mad.
Shoreline plants can perform important functions to help keep the lake healthy. One way the
plants provide a benefit is that they filter runoff as it flows into the lake. This helps reduce the
influx of nutrients from fertilizer as well as the inflow of eroded mud which can enter the lake
from surrounding land. They also help prevent shoreline erosion from waves created by wind.
Hansville Greenway Ecosystems
Meadow Habitat
Defining Characteristics
A meadow is a low-level grassland that may occur naturally or be created artificially from
cleared woodland. It is covered with vegetation, but—unlike a forest—it is covered mostly by
grassy plants, not by woody plants like trees or shrubs.
At Buck Lake, we can visit two meadows—Otter Meadow and Bear Meadow. Otter Meadow
was artificially created. It was cleared by people to be used to grow hay and for pasture. Bear
Meadow resulted from a clear-cut in the early 1990s when the land was logged, cleared, and
then seeded with grass.
Producers
Producers are at the beginning of every food web. As you know, all energy comes from the sun
(light energy), and plants make food with that energy. Producers are organisms that convert
carbon dioxide into sugars for their food through the process of photosynthesis. Plants also
make other nutrients for other organisms to eat.
Many plant producers populate the meadow. Most of these producers have been planted or
transferred from humans. These include thick and dense grasses such as orchard grass, velvet
grass, and timothy grass as well as the invasive canary grass.
There is an abundance of salmonberries and Himalayan blackberry and other plants that
provide berries and nectar. Flowers grow throughout the meadow, including white and red
clover and dandelions. Legumes, such as peas and lupines, and bracken fern also grows in this
habitat. Along the edges there may be stinging nettle. Watch out!
Consumers
A consumer is an organism that must eat another organism to obtain food. Consumers eat
producers or other consumers and can be herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores. The first level
of consumers are called primary consumers. These animals eat plants and are called herbivores.
Secondary consumers eat animals and are called carnivores. Animals that eat both plants and
animals are called omnivores.
Voles and other rodents, such as mice, live in the meadow because they are able to hide from
predators in the dense grasses. Coyotes come to meadow to hunt for these rodents. Many bird
species populate the meadow. Birds of prey such as eagles, hawks, and great blue herons not
only eat insects but also small mammals such as rodents and rabbits. Bats also hunt in the
meadow in the evening. Deer also come to the area to graze on the grasses.
Trees fall along the edges of Bear Meadow, and this downed wood provides shelter for many
animals. Woodpeckers drill snags for insects, and cavity-dwelling birds move into holes left by
the woodpeckers. Downed wood and stumps provide homes for bats, rodents, and
salamanders.
Decomposers
Decomposers consume other organisms that have died. Decomposers are nature’s “trash
collectors.” Decomposers include fungi and bacteria as well as invertebrates such as
earthworms and insects. They all work to break down the structures that made up any dead
organism, plant or animal. In the process of breaking down the dead plants and animals,
decomposers do two important things:
 Like all animals, they use oxygen to gain energy and drive their own life processes.
 They release nutrients back into the environment for other organisms to use.
Decomposers in the meadow include fungi like mushrooms. When you see a ring of mushrooms
in the meadow, it is really just one mushroom, and you are seeing the fruit of that one
mushroom growing in a circle above the ground.
Another decomposer in the meadow is the slug. Slugs eat the decaying detritus that no
consumer wants to eat. They poop out nutrients that enrich the soil so that plants can grow.
There slime is good for them, by the way! It makes it hard for predators like to eat them. The
slime makes them gag. (If you tried to eat a slug, wouldn’t you gag too?) And the slime makes it
easier for them to slide over rough surfaces like tree bark or prickly dried leaves.
Human Impact
The Bear Meadow habitat at the Hansville Greenway resulted from a clear-cut in the early
1990s when the land was logged, cleared, and seeded with grass. The area was planted with
orchard grass, tall fescue, and also some velvet grass, bent grass, and even some invasive
canary grass. Since that time there has been an invasion of Himalayan blackberry, salmonberry,
and bracken fern.
Humans in Kitsap county have introduced a variety of non-native vegetation for gardening
purposes. Many of these plants have become invasive and have taken over many places in the
county, crowding out the natural vegetation. This vegetation needs to be removed from the
Hansville Greenway for the health of the indigenous plants.
Humans introduced Himalayan blackberries to the region to grow in gardens. Birds ate the
berries and pooped out the seeds. Himalayan blackberries sprang up all over everywhere! One
thing people need to do now is to work together to remove the Himalayan blackberries from
Buck Lake. Right now humans keep Otter Meadow completely mowed and a trail is mowed
through Bear Meadow to help keep the Himalayan blackberries from taking over the landscape.