Intellectual Merit: This award will continue a long-term demographic study on plant populations in the Florida sandhills. Three new types of modeling approaches will be added: individual-based modeling, mark-recapture modeling to improve estimates of demographic rates, and larger-scale, spatially explicit modeling. The long-term demographic datasets allow characterization of environmental stochasticity, microhabitats, effects of fire, and metapopulation dynamics. Environmental stochasticity is incorporated into demographic projections. In addition, microhabitat effects on demographic variation have been characterized. These microhabitats are controlled in large part by fire, which creates or enlarges gaps, the preferred microhabitat for many of the study species. Expanded data collection on species' occurrences in defined habitat patches and expanded analyses of the interaction of spatial habitat structure and demography will occur. Spatially explicit models of demographic change will be built that are parameterized with observational data and experimental results. A new focus will be the long-term demography of Florida scrub plants in experimental restorations. One single-species introduction is underway in a sandhill ecosystem being restored with fire. Also, a long-term, multi-species demographic experiment within a large restoration will be started. Restoration goals of providing conditions for equivalent or improved demographic performance of introduced populations relative to wild populations will be evaluated. Experimental introductions in the restoration can in turn provide insights into colonization dynamics, dispersal rates, and microsite requirements of Florida scrub species. Broader Impacts: This research on the long-term demography of Florida scrub plants has accumulated data and models that have a broader impact than the advancement of research. Data and models are shared with the scientific community and thus facilitated more effective conservation biology. In addition, this study has provided many graduate and undergraduate student research opportunities.
