Impacts of Hydrological Restoration on Three Estuarine Communities of the Southwest Florida Coast and on Associated Animal Inhabitants

Project Investigator: Carole C. McIvor Project Personnel: Katie Kuss, Gary L. Hill, Kristen Hart, Noah Silverman Project Start Date: 2000 End Date: 2005 Proposals Work Plans Project Summaries Data Metadata Publications

Summary

The ultimate objectives of the proposed research are to predict and assess how altered hydrologic regimes planned by restoration managers are likely to impact submerged aquatic vegetation, fish, decapod crustaceans, and West Indian manatees in a range of estuarine habitats in SW Florida.

A primary goal of Everglades restoration is the recreation of water flows and water quality more closely approximating pre-drainage conditions in both freshwater and estuarine ecosystems within Everglades National Park. These estuarine systems include submerged aquatic vegetation, mangroves (tidal forests), and brackish marshes. Three primary groups of animals are closely associated with, and often dependent upon, one or more of these ecosystems: fish and decapod crustaceans (shrimp, crabs), manatees, and wading birds. This project will focus on fish and decapod crustaceans, and manatees. (Wading birds will be addressed in future efforts.) The present proposal addresses how hydrological changes upstream are likely to affect: (1) the distribution, abundance and composition of submerged aquatic vegetation and selected animal inhabitants; and (2) the distribution and abundance of selected biota associated with mangroves and brackish marshes.

Proposals

• 2001

Work Plans

• 2003
• 2004

Project Summaries

• 2001
• 2002
• 2003
• 2004

Data

• Mark-Recapture Study on Mangrove Terrapins in the Big Sable Creek Complex within Everglades National Park (from the data exchange pages)

Metadata

• Impacts of Hydrological Restoration on Three Estuarine Communities of the SW Florida Coast (project metadata)
• Mangrove Terrapin Mark Recapture Study data (data set metadata)

Publications

Abstracts

• Assessing the Consequence of Hurricane-Induced Conversion of Mangroves to Mudflats on Fish and Decapod Crustacean Assemblages in the Big Sable Creek Complex of Southwest Florida (from the GEER Conference, April 2003)
• Distribution, Abundance, and Population Structure of a Broadly Distributed Indicator Species, the Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin), in the Mangrove-Dominated Big Sable Creek Complex of Southwest Florida, Everglades National Park (from the GEER Conference, April 2003)
• Ecological and Genetic Profiles of Everglades Diamondback terrapins, a Potential Indicator Species (from the GEER Conference, June 2006)
• Fish Assemblages of Tidally Flooded Mangrove Forested Habitat Along a Salinity Gradient in Shark River (from the GEER Conference, April 2003)
• Hurricane-induced Conversion of Mangrove Forest to Mudflat: Impacts on Nekton, Big Sable Creek, Florida (from the GEER Conference, June 2006)
• Impacts of Hydrological Restoration on Three Estuarine Communities of the Southwest Florida Coast and on Associated Animal Inhabitants (from the GEER Conference, December 2000)
• Patterns in the distribution and abundance of mangrove-associated fishes and crustaceans along a salinity gradient in Shark River, Everglades National Park (from the GEER Conference, December 2000)

Flyers

• Florida Caribbean Science Center Restoration Ecology Branch

Posters

• Green Sea Turtles (Chelonia mydas) of Everglades National Park: Habitat Associations and Genetic Analyses
• Integrating Ecology and Genetics to Define Population Extent for a Continuously-distributed Species, Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin)
• Using sea turtles to find seagrass: Tracking juvenile Chelonia mydas with satellite telemetry in the southwest coastal Everglades, Florida, USA