1995 - 2007 Ecosystem History of South Florida's Estuaries Database (ver. 1.1, June 2022)

Publication Date

2020-09-30

Start Date

1994-09-27

End Date

2007-07-09

Revision

2022-06-27

Wingard, G.L., and Stackhouse, B.L., 2020, 1995 - 2007 Ecosystem History of South Florida's Estuaries Database (ver. 1.1, June 2022): US Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P959684M.

Beginning in the late 20th century, scientists and resource managers realized the Greater Everglades Ecosystem in South Florida was showing increasing signs of stress, and a large scale restoration project was implemented. In order to establish restoration goals and targets, it is important to understand the natural system and how it responds to stresses, and what role humans have played in altering the natural system. The USGS Ecosystem History of South Florida projects (started in 1995) were designed to provide this information by determining what south Florida's estuaries have looked like in the past, how they have changed, and what is the rate and frequency of change. To accomplish this, shallow sediment cores are collected within the bays, and the faunal and floral remains, sediment geochemistry, and shell biochemistry are analyzed. Modern field data are collected from the same region as the cores and serve as proxies to allow accurate interpretation of past depositional environments. The USGS Ecosystem History of South Florida projects integrate studies from a number of researchers compiling data from terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems within south Florida and the greater Everglades region. The project is divided into 3 regions: Biscayne Bay and the Southeast coast, Florida Bay and the Southwest coast, and Terrestrial and Freshwater Ecosystems of Southern Florida. The purpose of the projects is to provide information about the ecosystem's recent history based on analyses of paleontology, geochemistry, hydrology, and sedimentology of cores taken from the south Florida region. Data generated from the South Florida Ecosystem History projects will be integrated to provide biotic reconstructions for the area at selected time slices and will be useful in testing ecological models designed to predict floral and faunal response to changes in environmental parameters. Plant and animal communities in the South Florida ecosystem have undergone striking changes over the past few decades. In particular, Florida Bay (part of Everglades National Park) has been plagued by seagrass die-offs, algal blooms, and declining sponge and shellfish populations. These alterations in the ecosystem have traditionally been attributed to human activities and development in the region. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) are studying the paleoecological changes taking place in Florida Bay in hopes of understanding the physical environment to aid in the restoration process. First, however, scientists must determine which changes are part of the natural variation in Florida Bay and which resulted from human activities. To answer this question, modern habitats are studied and compared to piston cores that reveal changes over the past 150-5000 years. These two types of data complement each other by providing information about the current state of the ecosystem, changes that occurred over time, and patterns of change. Biscayne Bay is of interest to scientists because of the rapid urbanization that has occurred in the Miami area and includes Biscayne National Park. Dredging, propeller scars, and changes in freshwater input have altered parts of Biscayne Bay. Currently, the main freshwater input to Biscayne Bay is through the canal system, but many scientists believe subsurface springs used to introduce fresh groundwater into the Bay ecosystem. Study of the modern environment and core sediments from Biscayne Bay provide important information on past salinity and seagrass coverage, which can be used to predict future change within the Bay.

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