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From its cool-flowing streams in the Appalachian Mountains to its brackish marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, this collection of freshwater ecoregions includes a variety of habitats and some of the most species-rich freshwater systems on the planet.
Recognized worldwide as a center of aquatic diversity, it is home to more than 250 species of crayfish, nearly 300 species of mussels, and more than half the freshwater fish species in the United States.
Photograph of
spotted salamander by
Lynda Richardson/Corbis
