Wild rice marsh is closely related to the emergent marsh community but has wild rice (Zizania spp.) as the dominant macrophyte. Substrates supporting wild rice usually consist of poorly consolidated, semi-organic sediments. Water fertility is low to moderate, and a slow current is present. Wild rice beds have great cultural significance to native peoples and are important wildlife habitats. As an annual, the density of wild rice may vary considerably from year to year. Based on traditional ecological knowledge of regularly harvested rice stands, rice density in a given waterbody often varies on a roughly four year cycle with one "good" year, one "bad" year, and two moderate years on average, though this may be altered by a host of factors such as sedimentation, excess nutrients, invasive carp, fungal pathogens, or flooding or hail damage during rice's sensitive floating-leaf stage.
