Vegetation Classification for South Florida Natural Areas

Rutchey, Ken; Schall, T.N.; Doren, Robert F.; Atkinson, Andrea; Ross, Michael S.; Jones, D.T.; Madden, Marguerite; Vilchek, L.; Bradley, Keith; Snyder, James R.; Burch, J.N.; Pernas, Tony; Witcher, B.; Pyne, Milo; White, Rickie; Smith, Timothy J.; Sadle, Jimi; Smith, Cory; Patterson, Mike; Gann, George D.

doi:10.3133/ofr20061240

Cited by 22 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…Relationships between P and slough vegetation were assessed using the GIS vegetation classification scheme of Rutchey et al (2006). Sloughs were classified into four community types based on the dominant vegetation cover ( classification relied on stereoscopic analysis of 1:24 000 scale color-infrared positive transparencies (23 3 23 cm format) flown in January 2003.…”

Section: Slough Regime Shift Boundarymentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Section: Slough Regime Shift Boundarymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Hagerthey

Newman

Rutchey

et al. 2008

Ecological Monographs

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“…Geographic data in the background sections were obtained from numerous sources including the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Wunderlin and Hansen 2014), the Flora of the West Indies (Acevedo-Rodríguez and Strong 2014), TROPICOS (2014) and Ackerman & Collaborators (2014) for orchids. A review of major habitats for each SOMC was done and the description of habitat vegetation types follows Rutchey et al (2006), unless otherwise indicated. Conservation status includes ranking data from the IUCN Red List, NatureServe, the U.S.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…IRC ranks it as critically imperiled in South Florida. Rutchey et al (2006). It occurs in low upland habitats just above typical Florida Bay saltmarsh vegetation and sometimes intergrades with low tropical hardwood hammock; it is almost certainly flooded by salt water on an infrequent basis (J.…”

Section: Conservation Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most modern authors place the genus Chamaesyce into the genus Euphorbia sensu lato (Yang and Berry 2011), while USDA PLANTS, NatureServe, the Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants 176 Coastal grasslands is not a vegetation type recognized by Rutchey et al (2006), but is recognized by FNAI and IRC. 177 This habitat is found in the Florida Keys and is not covered by Rutchey et al (2006).…”

Section: Taxonomic Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Liverworts (Marchantiophyta) of Mahogany Hammock, Everglades National Park, Florida

Zona

Sadle²

2017

Evansia

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were coauthors both on IRC's book Rare Plants of South Florida (Gann et al. 2002) and Floristic Inventory of South Florida Database Online (Gann et al. 2001(Gann et al. -2014, without which this project would not have been possible.Bruce Hansen at the University of South Florida readily supplied herbarium label data and helped resolve confusing historical and taxonomic problems. Alan Franck, also at USF, and Mark Strong at the Smithsonian Institution, also provided herbarium label data, scans of images and other taxonomic assistance. The FNPS herbarium database online, which is managed by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and the National Park Service, was indispensable to the project. Brett Jestrow at Fairchild provided label data and a review of specimens at FTG, and Fairchild interns Kristen Finch and Brittany Harris helped with rare plant ranking using the new NatureServe methodology, literature searches, and other tasks. Special thanks to Anne Frances and Amanda Treher of NatureServe and Amy Jenkins of FNAI for helping to normalize and update global, national and state ranks of rare plants. Jennifer Possley of Fairchild was of particular help working through some of the fern accounts. Celio Moya assisted with obtaining updated rare plant data from Cuba.

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“…We created a dataset that matched the calculated hydrology at the HAED point to a co-located vegetation type by using the descriptions to assign a vegetation community class to each point. Our plant community classification scheme was a modification of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan vegetation classification (Rutchey et al 2006;Gann et al 2012) Defining start-and end-points of time intervals: To determine whether using hydrologically-defined periods, rather than annual averages, improved plant community class predictions, we examined data for periods spanning Julian years and hydrologically-defined intervals (1 hydrologic interval = 1 wet season + 1 dry season). The latter began with the wet season onset of the starting year and lasted until the end of the final dry season of the defined period.…”

Section: Study Area and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Comparison of Plant Community Hydrology Using Large-Extent, Long-Term Data

Gann

Richards

2014

Wetlands

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Large-extent vegetation datasets that co-occur with long-term hydrology data provide new ways to develop biologically meaningful hydrologic variables and to determine plant community responses to hydrology. We analyzed the suitability of different hydrological variables to predict vegetation in two water conservation areas (WCAs) in the Florida Everglades, USA, and developed metrics to define realized hydrologic optima and tolerances.Using vegetation data spatially co-located with long-term hydrological records, we evaluated 7 variables describing water depth, hydroperiod length, and number of wet/dry events; each variable was tested for 2-, 4-and 10-year intervals for Julian annual averages and environmentally-defined hydrologic intervals. Maximum length and maximum water depth during the wet period calculated for environmentally-defined hydrologic intervals over a 4-year period were the best predictors of vegetation type. Proportional abundance of vegetation types along hydrological gradients indicated that communities had different realized optima and tolerances across WCAs. Although in both WCAs, the trees/shrubs class was on the drier/shallower end of hydrological gradients, while slough communities occupied the wetter/deeper end, the distribution of Cladium, Typha, wet prairie and Salix communities, which were intermediate for most hydrological variables, varied in proportional abundance along hydrologic gradients between WCAs, indicating that realized optima and tolerances are contextdependent.3

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Vegetation Classification for South Florida Natural Areas

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

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

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

Liverworts (Marchantiophyta) of Mahogany Hammock, Everglades National Park, Florida

Quantitative Comparison of Plant Community Hydrology Using Large-Extent, Long-Term Data

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