Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Forest Retreat on the West Coast of Florida, USA

Abstract

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Sea level rise and South Florida coastal forests

“…2b). The pathway of hammock collapse will be via the decrease in freshwater recharge volume or shrinking of the vadose zone due to rising water table; this is different from the increases in tidal flooding documented by Williams et al (1999) in the hydric hammocks of Florida's Gulf Coast. The results of this study are relevant for the hardwood hammocks of the Florida Keys as well, where decline in pines and pine ecosystems are already underway (Ross et al 1994(Ross et al , 2009.…”

“…Saltwater intrusion has implications for continued existence of buttonwood-dominated plant communities and the rare species associated with these communities. DeSantis et al (2007) and Williams et al (1999) documented rapid changes in understory in response to sea level rise, as the tree seedlings and saplings in hydric hammocks showed greater susceptibility to salinity than adults. Our data indicate that such a change in the coastal forest complex of ENP may have already begun, and this situation warrants careful monitoring of species-specific responses to salinity and changes in flooding regime.…”

“…However, even before the onset of sustained inundation there can be irreversible changes in coastal forest composition, which is the focus of this paper. While studies in southeastern United States have looked at the role of sea level rise-induced increases in flooding frequency and groundwater salinity in coastal hydric hammocks of Florida (DeSantis et al 2007;Williams et al 1999), pine rocklands on oceanic islands off Florida's coast (Ross et al 1994(Ross et al , 2009, coastal marshes of Florida and Louisiana (Donnelly and Bertress 2001;Reed 2002), deltaic coasts of Mississippi (Blum and Roberts 2009), and tidal swamps in South Carolina (Krauss et al 2009), coastal forests of Everglades National Park (ENP) provide a novel setting because the wide range of plant communities present differ in their salinity tolerances. Additionally, reduced freshwater inflows due to upstream water management have hastened salt-water intrusion in ENP's coastal ecosystems (Nuttle et al 2000;Sklar and Browder 1998).…”

Comparative proteomic approach to identify proteins involved in flooding combined with salinity stress in soybean

“…Co-occurrence of salinity and waterlogging or flooding is very common in semiarid regions with irrigated agriculture (Smedema and Shiati 2002), areas with rising saline water tables (Hatton et al 2003), and coastal environments affected by seawater intrusion (Williams et al 1999).…”

Determinants of coastal treeline and the role of abiotic and biotic interactions

“…Treeline, the transition from forest to shrubland or grassland (Stevens and Fox 1991), is found along a variety of topographic, geographic, and environmental gradients, including elevation (Korner 1998), latitude (Esper and Schweingruber 2004), and salinity gradients (Williams et al 1999). At local spatial scales, biotic interactions and abiotic stress often create complex treeline patterns that in turn are regulated by disturbance history (Holtmeier and Broll 2005;Kennedy and Sousa 2006;Stevens and Fox 1991).…”