Featured Website: Great Lakes Coastal Habitats

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From dramatic, wind-swept sand dunes to lush, boggy wetlands and everything in between, Michigan is host to countless unique areas linking land and water. The Great Lakes Coastal Habitats section is a new feature on the Michigan Sea Grant web. The section provides an introduction to the most common coastal environments found in the Great Lakes region.

Habitat types covered include wetlands, emergent marshes, beaches, sand dunes, lakeplain prairie, forested shoreline, islands, and the open waters of the Great Lakes.

Three reasons you should visit the Great Lakes Coastal Habitats pages:

1. Learn. Did you know that sand particles are nearly indestructible? And that sand from Great Lakes’ beaches and dunes is generally made up of 87-94 percent quartz? No? Well, a visit to the Great Lakes Coastal Habitats pages could remedy that.
2. Appreciate. It took millions of years for many of these land formations to come into being. It will only take you minutes to go over the origins of things like sand dunes and coastal prairies and you’ll be all the wiser for it.
3. Understand. With brief descriptions on some of the flora and fauna the coastal areas support, it’s easier to see the big picture – that coastal wetlands are not just important to Michigan, but to the country as a whole.

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