Everglades Restoration: A New Focus
Beginning in January 2002, the Duke University Wetland Center
began a new phase of research focused on the restoration of communities in
the Everglades. In the newly proposed restoration plans (US Army Corps
of Engineers and South Florida Water Management District 2000) the concept
of adaptive management is suggested as a means to reduce uncertainty in terms
of biotic responses to the newly created hydrologic regimes in the Everglades.
However, it is clear that little is known about the dynamic interactions
between hydrology, fire, and nutrients in terms of maintaining Everglades
plant communities. Thus a series of experiments is badly needed to
address the interaction effects and reduce uncertainty concerning the response
of plant communities to restoration programs. The new project, funded
by the Everglades Agricultural Area Environmental Protection District at
$450,000 during 2002, will focus on three particular objectives. First,
DUWC staff will utilize the existing information from its research archives
to develop a field-based restoration plan. Work will begin in Everglades
Water Conservation Area 2A based on extensive data from the 1990-2000 gradient
studies. Secondly, a management restoration plan, primarily based on
the interactions of fire, nutrients, and hydrology, will be developed based
on a series of field trials and manipulations. This work is being done
in conjunction with The Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission, who
are providing background data on fire history as well as working with DUWC
staff to provide information on burned areas in the northern and central
Everglades. A focus of the research will be to restore areas that are
currently dominated by cattail in WCA-2A and –3A. The objective here
is to develop a well balanced mixed marsh community or the appropriate sawgrass
community, depending on the hydrologic and nutrient condition of the site.
A third part of the study will be to continue to collect vegetation, soil,
and water data from WCA-3A, an area that has not been studied as extensively
as WCA-2A. Data from these studies will be used to set restoration
goals for WCA-3A.
This new phase of the research focusing on restoration
will be the focus of Dr. Jim Pahl, who recently joined the wetland center
from Louisiana State University. Dr. Pahl will be responsible for developing
the restoration plans for the areas that have been taken over by cattail.
His research will focus on restoration experimentation involving hydroperiod,
soil nutrient status, and fire treatments as methods of restoring the plant
community diversity on the landscape. Research will focus on the development
of criteria necessary to regenerate sawgrass, wet prairie, slough, and even
pond apple communities in areas that have previously been disturbed or occupied
by dense monocultures of cattail and other species. Plans are currently
underway to develop a series of test areas to determine the effects of hydroperiod
and fire alterations on plant community regeneration. It is hoped that
the general guidelines from these studies will help focus efforts on creating
diversity of habitat within the Everglades
A 2001 report by Dr. Curtis Richardson and Dr.
Jacqueline Huvane,
Everglades Restoration: A Primer
, is available for download as a PDF. The
report draws on the Everglades research done by the Duke University Wetland
Center since 1990.
