Project Summary Sheet

Study Title: Ecological Models for Evaluating Effects of Restoration Alternatives on Coastal Ecosystems of Southwest Florida
Study Start Date: 6/30/2004   Study End Date: 6/29/2007
Web Sites:
Location: Charlotte, Collier, Lee, and Hendry counties
Funding Source: ENP Critical Ecosystems Studies Initiative (CESI), USGS Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES) Initiative and South Florida Water Management District
Principal Investigators: Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida, IFAS, 3205 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314-7799 Phone: 954-577-6304 Fax: 954-475-4125 e-mail: fjma@ufl.edu
Leonard Pearlstine, University of Florida, IFAS, 3205 College Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314-7799
Donald L. DeAngelis, Phone 305-284-1690, e-mail ddangelis@umiami.ir.miami.edu
Study Personnel: Zongbo Shang, Kevin Chartier
Other Supporting Organizations: USGS Greater Everglades Priority Ecosystems Science (GE PES), ACE, SFWMD
Associated Projects: A Spatially Explicit Decision Support System for Everglades Ecological Risk Assessment and Restoration

Overview & Objectives: The Southwest Florida Feasibility Study (SWFFS) is a component of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP). The SWFFS is an independent but integrated implementation plan for CERP projects and was initiated in recognition that there were additional water resource issues (needs, problems, and opportunities) within Southwest Florida not being addressed directly by CERP. The SWFFS identifies, evaluates, and compares alternatives that address those additional water resource issues in Southwest Florida. An adaptive assessment strategy is being developed that will create a system-wide monitoring program to measure and interpret ecosystem responses. The SWFFS provides an essential framework to address the health and sustainability of aquatic systems. This includes a focus on water quantity and quality, flood protection, and ecological integrity. A key component in adaptive management of the SWFFS is evaluating alternatives. Regional hydrological and ecological models will be applied to evaluate restoration alternatives and the results will be applied to modify alternatives.

The objectives of this project are to: develop and apply ecological forecasting models used to evaluate alternatives for the SWFFS.

Status: Coastal modeling and decision management interface development is completed for Eastern Oyster, Spotted Sea Trout, Blue Crab, Seagrass and Valisneria models. A submerged aquatic grasses meeting in early April was the last of the workshops for completing the coastal models before running them on hydrological scenarios. All of the coastal biological models (oyster, crab, trout, seagrass, and freshwater submerged grasses) were run repeatedly during April and May on alternative hydrological scenarios to examine different parameters in the models and the spatial outputs. The first meeting to select alternatives based on the biological models were held June 12-14. Model runs continued through September as new hydrologic inputs were provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Early April work continued development of inland habitat models. The initial models were presented for comments to the NSG in twice in May and from biologist at the GEER conference in early June. At the end of June all of the models (wading birds, amphibian communities, aquatic fauna communities, and large mammal connectivity and roadkill risk index) were operational, but untested.

Three reports have been submitted to the IMC:

Mazzotti, F.J., Pearlstine, L.G., Barnes, T., Bortone, S.A., Chartier, K. Weinstein, A.. and D. DeAngelis. 2006, Stressor response models for the Spotted seatrout, Cynoscion nebulosus. JEM Technical Report. Final report to the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S..Geological Survey. University of Florida, Florida Lauderdale Research and Education Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 11 pages.

Mazzotti, F.J., Pearlstine, L.G., Barnes, T., Volety, A., Chartier, K., Weinstein, A. and DeAngleis, D. 2006, Stressor response models for the Blue Crab, Callinectes, sapidus. JEM Technical Report. Final report to the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S..Geological Survey. University of Florida, Florida Lauderdale Research and Education Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 12 pages.

Mazzotti, F.J., Pearlstine, L.G., Barnes, T., Volety, A., Chartier, K., Weinstein, A. and DeAngelis, D. 2006, Stressor response models for the Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica. JEM Technical Report. Final report to the South Florida Water Management District and U.S. Geological Survey. University of Florida, Florida Lauderdale Research and Education Center, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 15 pages.

Recent Progress:

Coastal: Technical assistance was provided to the Water Management District for development of decision support methods. Five ecological suitability models, Blue Crab, American Oyster, Spotted Sea Trout, Seagrass and Valisneria have been completed and incorporated as modules into a decision interface that is now being used to perform comparisons of spatially-explicit species habitat suitability model runs against alternative Caloosahatchee River water release scenarios, examine the contribution of each input and obtain habitat units for decision models.

Inland: Models are ready to receive test Mike-She hydrological inputs from USACOE. Six year validation/ calibration Mike-She runs of natural conditions, existing, and 2050 without project will be supplied in mid to late September for that purpose.

Planned Products:

Coastal: The initial work will be finished and we will continue with next added increment runs (NAI).

Inland: The wading bird model is awaiting confirmation of colony locations; the large mammal model is undergoing minor logic adjustments and the user interface is being improved. As Mike-She hydrological model inputs are received we will begin testing the inland models against field observations and local biologist's knowledge. Application of the inland models to evaluation of alternative scenarios should occur in spring 07. Coastal models will be modified and implemented for Estero Bay.

Specific Relevance to Information Needs Identified in DOI's Science Plan in Support of Ecosystem Restoration, Preservation, and Protection in South Florida (DOI's Everglades Science Plan) [See Plan on SOFIA's Web site: http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/reports/doi-science-plan/]: This is a total system study that potentially supports information needs for all of the CERP activities that impact ecological communities. The decision aids and methodologies for decision-making are implicit in the DOI Science Plan which requires the gathered science to be integrated and applied to restoration. The ecological modeling, synthesis of science information, and application of decision aids specifically supports CERP as it (1) helps with prioritization of science resource allocations (p. 11); (2) helps decision-makers in establishing specific goals and objectives in the context of conflicting priorities and adaptive management (pp. 10,15 & 17); and (3) provides a systematic and documented procedure to evaluating alternatives for what actions will restore, protect, and manage natural resources on DOI lands in South Florida and what actions will recover South Florida's threatened and endangered species (p. 9).

In this year the study supports two of the projects listed in the DOI science plan (specifically: Southwest Florida Feasibility Study, C-43 Basin Storage Reservoir) by (a) developing models of habitat, biological diversity, and community ecological characteristics and (b) developing integrated assessment tools to support landscape level decision.

The study supports the Lower West Coast projects (SWFFS and C-43; p. 49) as it (1) provides assessment tools that are a critical priority for making landscape level restoration decisions that favor one species or trophic level over another or that maximize biodiversity with an ecological system (p. 49); spatially models the impacts of hydrologic targets on ecological conditions and the critical links between hydrology, water quality and ecological responses in southwest Florida (p. 50); (3) models how hydrologic and water quality targets relate to the landscape-scale assemblages of habitats needed to support the area's fish and wildlife resources and particularly, the wide-ranging species (p. 50); Geographic information system mapping for habitat database of hydrologic restoration contributions to listed species and the protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife value (p. 50); and aids in the identification of key indicator of the desired ecological responses (p. 51).

Key Findings:

1. The Coastal GIS stress/response models and user interface that have been completed met the specific needs for habitat and ecological evaluation of Southwest Florida restoration actions.
2. Improvements to the current habitat models and evaluations should proceed with the MAP adaptive assessment protocol using these models as the basis for field validation. Field studies should be designed to test the habitat and landscape feature relationships of species and community models.
3. Existing decision support methods will provide the aid needed by policy-makers in selecting among alternative restoration plans, but one SDSS should not try to address every need. Developers need to continue working closely with agency scientist and decision-makers to tailor products to the resource questions.