But scientists are increasingly understanding that bogs are also crucial ecosystems in the fight against climate change: in some cases, bogs can actually sequester more carbon than rain forests.
Bogs are an ecologically unique aquatic system. They occur in flat areas with very slow water outflow, so as dead plants decay, they form peat. Over thousands of years, the acidic peat accumulates, trapping all that carbon. The plants and animals that can survive in such an environment have adapted in intriguing ways. Most plants, for example, gather their nutrients from soil.
But in bogs, those nutrients are trapped, so organisms like the pitcher plant have adapted digestive enzymes to consume insects.
Paul DuBowy ’75, majored in natural resources in CALS, then went on to a distinguished career as a wetland ecologist, including in academia and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. For the past decade, he has traveled and taught through the Fulbright Program in Poland, Peru, Brazil and China.
“A lot of the earth’s carbon is locked up in these peat deposits. That’s why wetlands in general and bogs in particular are so important, because they lock up and hold the carbon,” DuBowy said. “And from an ecological perspective, bogs are really unique. Insectivorous plants, for example, are more abundant in bogs than anywhere else in nature.”
DuBowy and his wife, Virginia Steinhaus DuBowy, have established an endowment to fund a student internship at Cornell Botanic Gardens. The Paul DuBowy Internship in Bog and Wetland Conservation will help continue the university’s tradition of excellence and leadership in bog and wetland science and management.
