Synthesis of South Florida Ecosystem History Research

Project Investigators: Debra A. Willard, G. Lynn Wingard Project Personnel: Thomas M. Cronin, Charles W. Holmes, Joel Hudley Project Start Date: 2005 End Date: 2007 Recent Funding: (FY07) USGS GE PES, (FY06) USGS GE PES, (FY05) USGS GE PES Work Plans Project Summaries Data Publications

Summary

This project will integrate results from ongoing and previous research on the history of the Greater Everglades ecosystem and response of various components to climatic and anthropogenically derived change.

Please be sure to visit the South Florida Ecosystem History website

Everglades restoration planning requires an understanding of the impact of natural and human-induced environmental change in shaping the current ecosystem. Recent and ongoing research in the wetlands and estuaries is documenting biotic responses to specific environmental changes in specific parts of the greater Everglades ecosystem (tree islands, sawgrass ridges, sloughs, marl prairies, mangroves) and throughout Florida and Biscayne Bays. Data generated in these projects are being evaluated in the context of possible restoration strategies to improve prediction of future ecosystem response. This new project is intended to synthesize all data generated to date on the history of the Greater Everglades ecosystem and the response of various components to climatic and anthropogenically derived change.

Work Plans

• 2005
• 2006
• 2007

Project Summaries

• 2005
• 2006
• 2007

Data

• Age Depth Data for Biscayne Bay Cores (from OFR 2007-1203)
• Age Depth Data for Florida Bay Cores (from OFR 2007-1203)
• Lead-210 Data for Biscayne Bay cores (from OFR 2007-1203)
• Lead-210 Data for Florida Bay cores (from OFR 2007-1203)
• Lead-210 Data for Surficial Samples from Rankin Basin, Florida Bay, Florida (from OFR 2007-1203)

Publications

Abstracts

• Climate Variability, Sea-level Rise, and Coastal Ecosystem Restoration (from the GEER Conference, June 2006)
• Ecosystem History of South Florida’s Estuaries – What Do We Know and What Does It Mean for Restoration? (from the GEER Conference, June 2006)

Open File Reports

• Synthesis of Age Data and Chronology for Florida Bay and Biscayne Bay Cores Collected for Ecosystem History of South Florida's Estuaries Projects (OFR 2007-1203)

Reports

• Florida Bay Science Program: A Synthesis of Research on Florida Bay (Chapter 3 by Wingard et al. Report FWRI TR-11; available from the FWRI website. Please note that this is a (11 MB) PDF file and requires the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader® to be read)