>>Back in 1927, this creek was dammed by a gentleman named King Fulton to create a duck pond and a fishing habitat for Berkeley Plantation.

And in 2010, with the help of the Nature Conservancy, American Rivers Organization, NOAA, and the Army Corps of Engineers, we were able to remove the spillway of the dam, and recreate about 70 acres of tidal wetland and a few acres of non-tidal wetland.

>>The Rice River Center is a wonderful resource for your students.

It provides lots of hands-on learning.

So, tell me about that.

>>Sure.

Our focus is on the science and management of large river ecosystems, their watersheds, their airsheds, what goes on above the surface of the water, but also what goes on below the surface of the water, including water quality and air quality.

And it's a place where we can train the next generation of environmental scientists, conservation biologists, and restoration ecologists.

>>And I love the location because I mean, you've got the James River right there, and you've also got now Kimages Creek, which is freshwater, and the James, of course, is brackish and tidal out there.

So this area here is actually a very unique ecosystem that we're sitting in.

>>Absolutely.

So we're at the head of the tides here on the James River estuary, since the tides push all the way up to the city of Richmond.

What makes us unique is that it is tidal freshwater here.

So if you dip your finger in the creek here and take a little sip, it's gonna be fresh.

I wouldn't suggest doing that.

>>No, I'm not planning to.

(Peggy laughs) >>And that makes us a geo-morphologically unique site, because there's lots of work done down in the brackish marshes and salt marshes, and there's lots of work that's being done up in the unidirectional flow of the James.

>>Right.

>>But there's not a lot of science that's done on tidal freshwater wetlands and tidal freshwater ecosystems.

And they're some of the most imperiled and important ecosystems in the world.

And one of the things we did with the help of the Nature Conservancy and American Rivers, was plant about 25,000 aquatic trees and shrubs.

We've planted bald cypress, we've planted river birch, we've planted sycamore, we've planted dogwoods and species like that.

Buttonbush.

A lot of common species that you'd find in aquatic habitats.

They're uniquely adapted both physiologically and morphologically and anatomically to live life in saturated soil conditions.

>>Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that.

What makes a plant capable of living in wetland?

'Cause I know at my house, with all the rain that we've been having, I've been losing a lot of my plants, 'cause they're just saturated.

They can't handle the wetness.

>>Every cell in a plant body, like every cell in the human body, has to have oxygen.

And so even the plants that can grow in water still have to have oxygen in their roots.

So they have these unique features.

It forms what's called aerenchyma tissue.

>>Yes.

>>And that enables a plant to act like a straw from the sediments up to the atmosphere, or from the atmosphere down to the sediments, so they can literally transport oxygen from the above ground chutes down into the roots.

And that's the primary adaptation that many herbaceous and woody plants use in order to get oxygen back down to the roots, so they can carry on their metabolism.

>>In that very wet area.

But not all plants have that adaptation, kind of like in our rain gardens.

>>So in a rain garden, you're gonna wanna put a specific subset of the plants that are out in the environment.

And this subset, of very few plants, actually, out of 22,500 plants that are in North America, are adapted to living life with their roots in saturated anoxic conditions.

>>Uh huh.

>>So if they don't have these unique adaptations, they're not gonna be able to survive in the rain garden.

Many woody species have lenticels that enable gas exchange between the cambium and the outside air.

But in a wetland plant, they're gonna have what's called a hypertrophied lenticel.

So they'll be enlarged in order to help bring air in.

Some of the other adaptations of woody species are shallow roots, adventitious roots, which will form what's also called water roots.

And they'll form if flooding occurs for several weeks or a month, they'll get roots that actually grow not from embryonic root tissue, but out of the stem or the trunks of the trees.

>>Right.

'Cause those cells can differentiate either way.

>>And since when you're dealing with a rain garden or with a wetland and you have saturated soils, plants aren't gonna be able to put a big taproot down too far in the water.

So their plant roots are gonna spread out along the surface to help capture oxygen, but also to help support the tree.

>>Mhm.

>>Ane other interesting feature of wetland trees at least, is the big, flared buttress at the trunk of like cypress trees and tupelo trees and some of the ash trees.

That buttress is like a flying buttress on a medieval church.

It helps support the tree and give it structural support in a habitat where they can't put down big tap roots.

>>It's fascinating, because people are always still wondering what about those knees with the cypress?

And I guess one day we'll know the answer.

(Peggy laughs) >>Well, there's a lot of theories out there, but I think the theory that has the most traction right now is that it's for structural support.

So they spread out and kind of form a little bit of a tiny ecosystem of their own, but it's all for structure to help with tree support in an area where they can't put down a big taproot for anchoring support.

>>Mhm.

And speaking of ecosystems, those trees themselves created their own ecosystem, but the plants all together bring in and enrich, I'll say the wildlife in this community.

>>Oh, absolutely.

You're sitting right now in an ecological success story.

When their dam was here, we had a handful of different fish species that used this site.

Dozens of birds maybe, but once we removed the dam and then restored these wetlands, we've got dozens upon dozens of fish species that are using the site, over 153 different species of birds.

It's hopping with frogs, it's teeming with toads, lots of reptiles and amphibians.

It's a real biodiversity hotspot these tidal freshwater wetlands are.

>>And it all starts with the plants.

>>Right, yeah.

>>The plants.

It rolls back to the plants.

But how many types of plants do you think?

I know you know, how many are growing here.

>>Well, we found 50- >>In Kimages Creek.

>>55 different species of herbaceous plants, and they include perennial grasses such as southern rice cut grass, and annual grasses, such as the northern wild rice that you see right here that's growing.

This is the same wild rice that has sustained the indigenous populations around here for thousands of years, and continues to do so in the Midwest.

We have broadleaf perennial plants like the Pontederia cordata, the pickerelweed and blue flower you see behind us.

We have broadleaf annual plants like arrowhead.

And then there's a host of woody species as well.

We've got cypress, you've got lots of shrubs, and all kinds of woody species of vines that use the site as well, so it has really become an amalgamation of species diversity.

And while the site receives tides like a salt marsh, so it's getting the same subsidies- >>Right.

>>Without the salinity.

So without that salinity, it enables the biodiversity of plants just to explode here, which it really has done.

>>It's fascinating.

People just don't realize the diversity that a wetland provides.

>>Oh- >>And we have forgotten the importance that they play.

And I think here that, you know, this example of taking a lake, removing the dam, and restoring it back to a wetland is one that we can repeat up and down our rivers here in Virginia, and elsewhere along the East Coast.

>>Not only Virginia, but all but all over the country.

I mean, we actually lived in a "dammed nation."

There's over 2.5 million dams, supposedly.

Low head dams and larger dams across the country.

And it is a viable option now to help restore not only stream habitat, but also the riparian wetland habitat.

Help out with cleaning our surface water, with cleaning our groundwater.

>>Yes.

>>And help out with ameliorating the climate, because that's another thing that they do.

They sequester carbon, they help with- >>Tremendous amount of carbon.

>>Yeah, absolutely.

>>Ed, I thank you.

I thank you for really getting down and dirty with wetlands and explaining this.

And for the research that you and the students are doing here at the Rice River Center in Kimages Creek.

(birds chirping)