Approximately 50% of the U.S. population lives within 80 km of a coast. As human populations proximal to coasts increase, demands for the natural resources and services that coastal ecosystems provide will also grow, further stressing these ecosystems. The Florida Coastal Everglades LTER (FCE) is an excellent laboratory for understanding how coastal ecosystem dynamics respond to, and influence, human activities. Oligotrophy is a defining characteristic of FCE, and the estuaries of the study area are biogeochemically upside down because the source of limiting nutrients is the ocean, not the watershed. The conceptual approach for FCE II is evolutionary, with emphases on oligohaline ecotone dynamics; hydrologic, climatological, and human drivers that affect those dynamics; and processes that regulate biophysical inputs to the ecotone from upstream freshwater Everglades marshes and the estuary proper. The overarching theme of FCE II follows this evolution of ideas: In the coastal Everglades landscape, population and ecosystem-level dynamics are controlled by the relative importance of water source, water residence time, and local biotic processes.
This phenomenon is best exemplified in the oligohaline ecotone, where these factors interact most strongly and vary over many temporal and spatial scales. FCE will continue tracking the flow of water from canals to the ocean along two transects in Everglades National Park. Several new initiatives include new research hydrology (particularly groundwater hydrology) and human dimensions. Everglades Restoration is the experimental, BACI-style template for FCE; in this next round of funding a major restoration project will remove a key levee at the head of one of the transects. This grand experiment will cause a considerable increase in freshwater flow to only one transect, and central hypotheses are directed at understanding the results of this major change.
FCE II will continue its close involvement with the many existing modeling efforts in south Florida to avoid redundancies and will expand its dynamic budget simulation modelling to the ecotone regions, thus filling a critical between-ecosystem simulation gap. Finally, FCE II will continue to carefully balance continuity (critical to any successful long-term program) with support for new ideas and initiatives by expanding program leadership to include both FCE I PIs and rising star junior faculty.
FCE is based at FIU, a majority-minority public university that is one of the largest Hispanic-serving institutions in the U.S. The FCE student group is large, active, and diverse. The FCE K-12 program, in which 89% of all students impacted are Hispanic, will be strengthened by including new high school curriculum development and enhanced mentoring. Outreach to the South Florida community (which is over 60% Hispanic) will become fully bilingual. The user-friendly, information-rich FCE website will continue to be the primary outreach portal. FCE II will further the goal of linking FCE science with Everglades Restoration to provide reliable, continuous and growing knowledge transfer from basic ecological theory to the development of more effective environmental management and restoration/rehabilitation programs.
The Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) LTER Program studies how global climate change and shifting approaches to water management impact the Florida Everglades and the 9 million residents of the region. Profoundly changed by regional water management practices and altered patterns of land use, the Everglades has been reduced to less than half its original extent, and is now primarily contained within Everglades National Park. Although the present day park is a mere remnant of the historical Everglades, it provides an excellent laboratory for studying how coastal ecosystems interact with human activities. This long term study examines the restoration of water flow to the Everglades in a landscape-level experiment that tests general ecological theory, serves as a guide for effective restoration policy, and allows development of new frameworks for discoveries in coastal ecosystem and restoration science. Intellectual Merit: During phase II of this long-term program (2007-2012), we discovered that delays in freshwater restoration have increased rates of saltwater encroachment into the freshwater Everglades. Saltwater is seeping inland both above and below-ground and is reducing the abundance of the dominant marsh plant, sawgrass. The intrusion of marine water has increased the concentrations of phosphorus, an important plant nutrient, above those on the Everglades interior and has led to an increase in the density of salt-tolerant mangroves. Our results have revealed that these subtropical mangrove forests and nearby seagrass communities remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than most other ecosystems on the planet. However, the effects of persistent saltwater encroachment will influence the fate of this carbon which is primarily stored in Everglades soils. FCE research has shown that the organic material produced by these coastal plant communities is less abundant when freshwater flow is reduced. As an important food source in Everglades estuarine food webs, changes in the abundance of organic matter can influence animal populations. Tracking studies have shown that large, aquatic, consumers such as alligators and bull sharks spend much of their time in the upper freshwater marshes of the Everglades. We have also learned that they also travel to marine waters to feed and thereby transport marine nutrients and energy inland. Our results have also indicated that tropical storms punctuate the directional pressure of saltwater encroachment and the continued diversion of freshwater away from the Everglades drainages. In addition, we have found that sometimes these storm surge supply sediments and nutrients that help the coastal system to recover more quickly. Finally, our work has begun to reveal how South Florida residents have responded to changes in the Everglades and led to conflict over land and resource distribution decisions between stakeholders and ultimately delayed the restoration process. FCE research is unique in its partnership with government agency scientists. Through this collaboration, modeling efforts are being used to project future scenarios for the Everglades under a range of management plans and climate change conditions and had enabled us to influence restoration decisions that benefit the ecosystem and people of South Florida. Over 200 refereed journal articles, 4 books, 19 book chapters, 3 thematic issues of journals, and 36 dissertations and theses were produced between 2007-2012 (see http://fcelter.fiu.edu/publications/ for a full list). A total of 135 datasets have been generated, 125 of which are publically available online through a centralized system (https://portal.lternet.edu/nis/) that enables discovery by scientists, educators and students worldwide. Broader Impacts: Our public outreach is facilitated by these scientific interactions by providing a long-term context for assessing the influence of water management changes on the Everglades landscape that can be used to advise local, state and federal decisions about restoration. Our education program communicates research findings to K-12 students and teachers in the South Florida community (which is over 60% Hispanic), and more broadly through a variety of programs that educate the public about the ecology and importance of the Everglades. Our public communications have included publication of a children’s book in English and Spanish called "One Night in the Everglades" ("Una Noche en los Everglades", by Laurel Larsen and Joyce Mihran Turley), quarterly site newsletters, museum exhibits, television segments, a website, and videoconference presentations. We have a very active high school internship program where students conduct field and laboratory research with FCE LTER researchers and graduate students. Several of these students have been recognized with awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Our Research Experience for Teacher program has generated K-12 science curriculum based on FCE research. We also provided research experiences for 72 undergraduate students. The 70 graduate students currently involved in the program maintain a Facebook page and science blog about their Everglades research (Wading Through Research, http://floridacoastaleverglades.blogspot.com/). FCE scientists, students, and staff have been active in LTER Network leadership and research, participating and leading over 20 cross-site scientific workshops, catalyzing comparative science within the LTER Network and internationally.
