The Ecological-Societal Underpinnings of Everglades Restoration

Sklar, Fred H.; Chimney, Michael J.; Newman, Susan; Mccormick, Paul; Gawlik, Dale E.; Miao, ShiLi; McVoy, Christopher; Said, Winifred; Newman, Jana; Coronado, Carlos; Crozier, Gaea E.; Korvela, Michael; Rutchey, Ken

doi:10.2307/3868544

Cited by 30 publications

(39 citation statements)

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“…Steps have been taken to increase freshwater delivery to the coastal Everglades: under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) authorized in 2000, a series of 60+ projects were proposed to restore the flow of water back to the southern Everglades (Sklar et al 2005). However, as of 2017, the most critical central decompartmentalization projects still await Federal funding, and flows to the southern Everglades are still not up to CERP target levels (National Academies of Sciences 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry‐down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades

Wilson

Servais

Mazzei

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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Coastal wetlands are globally important sinks of organic carbon (C). However, to what extent wetland C cycling will be affected by accelerated sea‐level rise (SLR) and saltwater intrusion is unknown, especially in coastal peat marshes where water flow is highly managed. Our objective was to determine how the ecosystem C balance in coastal peat marshes is influenced by elevated salinity. For two years, we made monthly in situ manipulations of elevated salinity in freshwater (FW) and brackish water (BW) sites within Everglades National Park, Florida, USA. Salinity pulses interacted with marsh‐specific variability in seasonal hydroperiods whereby effects of elevated pulsed salinity on gross ecosystem productivity (GEP), ecosystem respiration (ER), and net ecosystem productivity (NEP) were dependent on marsh inundation level. We found little effect of elevated salinity on C cycling when both marsh sites were inundated, but when water levels receded below the soil surface, the BW marsh shifted from a C sink to a C source. During these exposed periods, we observed an approximately threefold increase in CO2 efflux from the marsh as a result of elevated salinity. Initially, elevated salinity pulses did not affect Cladium jamaicense biomass, but aboveground biomass began to be significantly decreased in the saltwater amended plots after two years of exposure at the BW site. We found a 65% (FW) and 72% (BW) reduction in live root biomass in the soil after two years of exposure to elevated salinity pulses. Regardless of salinity treatment, the FW site was C neutral while the BW site was a strong C source (−334 to −454 g C·m−2·yr−1), particularly during dry‐down events. A loss of live roots coupled with annual net CO2 losses as marshes transition from FW to BW likely contributes to the collapse of peat soils observed in the coastal Everglades. As SLR increases the rate of saltwater intrusion into coastal wetlands globally, understanding how water management influences C gains and losses from these systems is crucial. Under current Everglades’ water management, drought lengthens marsh dry‐down periods, which, coupled with saltwater intrusion, accelerates CO2 loss from the marsh.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry‐down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades

Wilson

Servais

Mazzei

et al. 2018

Ecological Applications

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“…1) whose historical nutrient inputs were primarily provided via atmospheric deposition. Within the last century, anthropogenic disturbance associated with water management, agricultural practices, and urbanization has resulted in increased nutrient loading, primarily phosphorus (P), and alterations of natural hydro-patterns (Davis and Ogden 1994, Porter and Porter 2002, Sklar et al 2005. Gunderson (2001) describes a regime shift from a low-nutrient sawgrass FIG.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is substantial evidence to suggest that the response of sloughs to eutrophication is spatially distinct and independent of Cladium eutrophication. The changes in Everglades' slough structure and function associated with eutrophication are well documented along gradients downstream of point source discharges (see reviews by McCormick et al 2002, Sklar et al 2005.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One key result was the identification of the controlling variable (P) and establishment of the five-year geometric mean total P (GMTP) concentration of 10 lg/L as the critical threshold (The State of Florida Class III water quality criterion, Florida Statute Chapter 62-302.540). Above 10 lg GMTP/L, an imbalance in natural flora and fauna occurs, as reflected in losses of native periphyton and invertebrate assemblages, decreases in ecosystem metabolism, and increases in plant species composition and nutrient content , Sklar et al 2005. Within WCA-2A, these ecological changes occur abruptly in a region Sklar et al (2005) referred to as the ''zone of community change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiple Regime Shifts in a Subtropical Peatland: Community‐specific Thresholds to Eutrophication

Hagerthey

Newman

Rutchey

et al. 2008

Ecological Monographs

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Abstract. Ecosystems have a natural resilience to perturbations, where resilience is the magnitude of a disturbance that an ecosystem can resist before changes in structure, function, and services result in a regime shift. The Everglades region of Florida, USA, has been detrimentally impacted by phosphorus (P) enrichment and a regime shift from Cladium (sawgrass) to Typha (cattail) marsh has been described. We examine another facet of the lownutrient Everglades stability regime, open-water sloughs, to determine if eutrophication leads to similar regime shifts.We analyzed surface water P and soil P as controlling variables that, once a critical threshold is surpassed, alter ecosystem state variables. Nonlinear relationships between P and vegetation were observed along a northern Everglades eutrophication gradient. In addition to the Cladium-Typha regime shift, a second independent regime shift, slough-Typha, was identified. Synoptic surveys of 49 sloughs within the boundary between the slough and Typha regime revealed that surface water total phosphorus (TP) and the benthic algal floc layer (BAFL) were the controlling variables, with critical thresholds of 11 lg/L and 412 mg/kg, respectively. The slough regime below these thresholds was characterized by calcareous periphyton (BAFL TP ¼ 298 mg P/kg; BAFL calcium ¼ 149 g Ca/kg). Above the TP thresholds, vegetation composition shifted to open-marsh species with significantly higher BAFL TP (700 mg P/kg) and total organic carbon (TOC) (350 g C/kg). A second BAFL TP threshold occurred at 712 mg P/kg, above which Nymphaea dominated and BAFL TP (1034 mg P/kg) and TOC (417 g C/kg) significantly increased. Nymphaea sloughs transitioned to the Typha regime. The boundary reflects the loss of ecosystem resilience due to eutrophication. Both low-nutrient stability regimes (slough and Cladium) lie precariously close to the P critical threshold but differ in how eutrophication is absorbed and resisted. The slough regime transitions rapidly through a series of ecosystem state changes linked to positive feedback loops that affect P dynamics, whereas the Cladium regime does not. An adaptive management strategy has been implemented to address the surface water TP threshold; however, to ensure successful restoration of the Everglades, the BAFL and soil TP thresholds also need to be considered.

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“…The wood stork population is facing environmental change pressures in many regards, from alterations of the natural hydrological dynamics in the Everglades (Kushlan 1987, Sklar et al 2001, Sklar 2005 to increasing urbanization (Hefner and Brown 1984, Reynolds 2001, Terando et al 2014, to which the population might respond in the long run by altering migratory patterns. This is an increasingly documented phenomenon in bird populations in response to various drivers, including climate change, changes in resource phenology, and supplemental feeding (Cotton 2003, Visser et al 2009, Satterfield et al 2018.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Partial migration in a subtropical wading bird in the southeastern United States

et al. 2020

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The function of migration is to allow exploitation of resources whose availability is heterogeneous in space and time. Much effort has been historically directed to studying migration as a response to seasonal, predictable fluctuations in resource availability in temperate species. A deeper understanding of how different migration patterns emerge in response to different patterns of resource variation requires describing migration patterns of species inhabiting less predictable environments, especially in tropical and subtropical areas. We provide the first individual‐based, quantitative description of migratory patterns in a subtropical wading bird in the southeastern United States, the wood stork (Mycteria americana). Using GPS tracking data for 64 individuals tracked between 2004 and 2017, we classified migratory behavior at the individual‐year level using information theory‐based model selection on nonlinear models of net squared displacement. We found that the wood stork population is partially migratory, with 59% of individuals seasonally commuting between winter ranges in Florida and summer ranges elsewhere in the population range (migrants), and 28% remaining in a single area in Florida year‐round (residents). Additionally, 13% of storks act as facultative migrants, migrating in some years but not in others. Comparing the distribution of residents and migrants suggests that different migratory strategies might be associated with the use of different or differently distributed resources, possibly including food supplementation from human activities. The existence of facultative migrants shows the potential for plastic change in migratory patterns. Partial migration in wood storks may be an adaptation to high heterogeneity and unpredictability of food resources. We suggest that future research should focus on wading birds as model species for the study of partial migration as an adaptation to heterogeneous and unpredictable environments.

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The Ecological-Societal Underpinnings of Everglades Restoration

Cited by 30 publications

References 0 publications

Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry‐down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades

Salinity pulses interact with seasonal dry‐down to increase ecosystem carbon loss in marshes of the Florida Everglades

Multiple Regime Shifts in a Subtropical Peatland: Community‐specific Thresholds to Eutrophication

Partial migration in a subtropical wading bird in the southeastern United States

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