Natural disturbances, such as hurricanes, have major influences on ecological communities. Disturbances influence which species, and how many individuals, are present, and where these species occur within the system. A major impediment to discerning how natural disturbances influence ecological communities is that most studies lack pre-disturbance data. Pre-disturbance data are essential as a basis for comparison with post-disturbance data to determine a disturbance's effect. Because disturbances tend to be unpredictable, studies of disturbances occur opportunistically when research is interrupted by a disturbance (thus providing pre- and post-disturbance data). Although hurricanes are relatively frequent in warm latitudes, their occurrence in time and space are unpredictable. Thus, studies of their effects are relatively rare. In contrast to natural disturbances, anthropogenic disturbances tend to have different ecological effects. This is, in part, because anthropogenic effects are often permanent (e.g., a seawall replaces a beach) or long-term (nutrients added to an estuary), while many natural disturbances are discrete events. Almost nothing is known about how anthropogenic disturbances impact the ability of ecological communities to recover from natural disturbances. Fishes in anthropogenically-disturbed and natural estuarine creeks of Charlotte Harbor, Florida were sampled for 19 months before a direct hit by Hurricane Charley in August 2004. Post-hurricane sampling will provide data necessary for estimates of hurricane impacts on economically and ecologically important estuarine fishes. In addition, this study will compare how estuarine fishes recover from a hurricane in anthropogenically-disturbed and in natural creeks, and the analysis of the resulting data will have applications to education, conservation, and resource management.
