American alligator ecology and monitoring for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan
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Estuarine fish serve as an important prey base in the Greater Everglades ecosystem for key fauna such as wading birds, crocodiles, alligators, and piscivorous fishes. Human-made changes to freshwater flow across the Greater Everglades have resulted in less freshwater flow into the fringing estuaries and coasts. These changes in freshwater input have altered salinity patterns and negatively affected primary production of the estuarine fish prey base. Planned restoration projects should affect salinity and water depth both spatially and temporally and result in an increase in appropriate water conditions in areas occupied by estuarine fish. To assist in restoration planning, an ecological model of estuarine prey fish biomass availability was developed as an evaluation tool to aid in the determination of acceptable ranges of salinity and water depth. Comparisons of model output to field data indicate that the model accurately predicts prey biomass in the estuarine regions of the model domain. This model can be used to compare alternative restoration plans and select those that provide suitable conditions.
Dams have long been associated with elevated burdens of human schistosomiasis, but how dams increase disease is not always clear, in part because dams have many ecological and socio-economic effects. A recent hypothesis argues that dams block reproduction of the migratory river prawns that eat the snail hosts of schistosomiasis. In the Senegal River Basin, there is evidence that prawn populations declined and schistosomiasis increased after completion of the Diama Dam. Restoring prawns to a water-access site upstream of the dam reduced snail density and reinfection rates in people. However, whether a similar cascade of effects (from dams to prawns to snails to human schistosomiasis) occurs elsewhere is unknown. Here, we examine large dams worldwide and identify where their catchments intersect with endemic schistosomiasis and the historical habitat ranges of large, migratory Macrobrachium spp. prawns. River prawn habitats are widespread, and we estimate that 277–385 million people live within schistosomiasis-endemic regions where river prawns are or were present (out of the 800 million people who are at risk of schistosomiasis). Using a published repository of schistosomiasis studies in sub-Saharan Africa, we compared infection before and after the construction of 14 large dams for people living in: (i) upstream catchments within historical habitats of native prawns, (ii) comparable undammed watersheds, and (iii) dammed catchments beyond the historical reach of migratory prawns. Damming was followed by greater increases in schistosomiasis within prawn habitats than outside prawn habitats. We estimate that one third to one half of the global population-at-risk of schistosomiasis could benefit from restoration of native prawns. Because dams block prawn migrations, our results suggest that prawn extirpation contributes to the sharp increase of schistosomiasis after damming, and points to prawn restoration as an ecological solution for reducing human disease.
One of the world’s largest “blue carbon” ecosystems, Louisiana’s tidal wetlands on the US Gulf of Mexico coast, is rapidly being lost. Louisiana’s strong legal, regulatory, and monitoring framework, developed for one of the world’s largest tidal wetland systems, provides an opportunity for a programmatic approach to blue carbon accreditation to support restoration of these ecologically and economically important tidal wetlands. Louisiana’s coastal wetlands span ∼1.4 million ha and accumulate 5.5–7.3 Tg yr −1 of blue carbon (organic carbon), ∼6%–8% of tidal marsh blue carbon accumulation globally. Louisiana has a favorable governance framework to advance blue carbon accreditation, due to centralized restoration planning, long term coastal monitoring, and strong legal and regulatory frameworks around carbon. Additional restoration efforts, planned through Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, over 50 years are projected to create, or avoid loss of, up to 81,000 ha of wetland. Current restoration funding, primarily from Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlements, will be fully committed by the early 2030s and additional funding sources are required. Existing accreditation methodologies have not been successfully applied to coastal Louisiana’s ecosystem restoration approaches or herbaceous tidal wetland types. Achieving financial viability for accreditation of these restoration and wetland types will require expanded application of existing blue carbon crediting methodologies. It will also require expanded approaches for predicting the future landscape without restoration, such as numerical modeling, to be validated. Additional methodologies (and/or standards) would have many common elements with those currently available but may be beneficial, depending on the goals and needs of both the state of Louisiana and potential purchasers of Louisiana tidal wetland carbon credits. This study identified twenty targeted needs that will address data and knowledge gaps to maximize financial viability of blue carbon accreditation for Louisiana’s tidal wetlands. Knowledge needs were identified in five categories: legislative and policy, accreditation methodologies and standards, soil carbon flux, methane flux, and lateral carbon flux. Due to the large spatial scale and diversity of tidal wetlands, it is expected that progress in coastal Louisiana has high potential to be generalized to similar wetland ecosystems across the northern Gulf of Mexico and globally.
dictors of nesting for snail kites in south Florida. The results of our modeling indicate that hydrology, percent canopy cover, and proximity to recently burned areas were the most important factors associated with nest-site selection for snail kites. Water depths between 75 and 100 cm, water recession rates between 0 and 1.25 cm/day, percent canopy covers <20%, and areas <10 km from recently burned habitat were associated with the greatest likelihood of nest-site selection. KiteNest is applicable to natural resource management decisions in the Everglades and may be useful independently or in conjunction with other ecological models for restoration decision support.
After centuries of disturbance, environmental professionals now recognize the need to restore coastal watersheds for native fish and protect the larger ecosystems on which fish and other aquatic biota depend. Anadromous fish species are an important component of coastal ecosystems that are often adversely affected by human activities. Restoring native anadromous fish species is a common focus of both fish and coastal watershed restoration. Yet restoration efforts have met with uneven success, often due to lack of knowledge about habitat availability and use. Using habitat surveys and radio tracking of adult anadromous alewives Alosa pseudoharengus during their spring spawning migration, we illustrate a method for quantifying habitat using multiple approaches and for relating mobile fish distribution to habitat. In the Ipswich River, Massachusetts, measuring habitat units and physical conditions at transects (width, depth, and velocity) provided an ecological basis for the interpretation of landscape patterns of fish distribution. Mapping habitat units allowed us to efficiently census habitat relevant to alewives for the entire 20.6 river kilometers of interest. Our transect data reinforced the results of the habitat unit survey and provided useful, high‐resolution ecological data for restoration efforts. Tagged alewives spent little time in riffle–run habitats and substantial time in pools, although the locations of pool occupancy varied. The insights we provide here can be used to (1) identify preferred habitats into which anadromous fish can be reintroduced in order to maximize fish survival and reproduction and (2) pinpoint habitat types in urgent need of protection or restoration.
In the United States, National Park Service Civil War battlefield units are managed for both historical accuracy (i.e., to represent landscape conditions at the time of the conflict for historical interpretation), and for natural resource protection. However, managing for both goals can create conflicts as many battlefields were largely open or in second growth forests historically, but now harbor significant forest resources after more than 100 years of preservation. Managing for historical accuracy therefore may require maintenance of the landscape in a successional stage out of phase with the current landscape. We use historical landscape maps and current high-resolution forest structure data derived from lidar to examine tradeoffs in returning the landscape of a major Civil War battlefield (Wilderness Battlefield) to conditions present at the time of the battle. We demonstrate that National Park battlefield units can harbor significant forest resources in contrast to the surrounding landscape, especially in areas of intense commercial, urban, and suburban development. Managing for or restoring landscapes to historical conditions could have important ecological implications.
Dams are one of the greatest threats to freshwater biodiversity and efforts to remove dams to restore riverine systems are increasing. However, dam-removal studies have primarily focused on taxonomic responses to large dam removals with little work on the functional trait responses of fish to small-dam removals; such a focus limits the application of results in regions with different taxonomic compositions. We explored taxonomic and functional trait responses of fish assemblages to two small-dam removals over 10 years using a Multiple Before After Control Impact design at a dammed and an undammed river. Eight life-history traits were used to calculate functional diversity (RaoQ) and determine the position of each fish species within a multivariate life-history space relative to three life-history strategy endpoints: opportunistic, periodic, and equilibrium. The distance of each species relative to these endpoints was used to calculate community weighted means (CWM), allowing us to examine the shift in life-history strategy of a given assemblage after dam removal. Based on life-history theory, we predicted a decrease in the CWM of equilibrium strategists and an increase in the CWM opportunistic strategists after dam removal. For the dammed river, we observed changes in assemblage structure at both the control and impact sites driven primarily by shifts from a lentic to lotic assemblage, with the most apparent change occurring in the formerly impounded sites. These changes tended to occur within 1 year, suggesting rapid colonization by lotic species after habitat change. By contrast, no change in assemblage structure was found for the undammed river, suggesting that dam removal was the primary driver of the shifts in assemblage structure observed in the dammed river. We found no change in the CWM of periodic strategists or RaoQ of all life-history traits at any site after dam removal. Based on CWM, life-history strategies shifted in response to dam removal at impounded sites where equilibrium strategists decreased and opportunistic strategists tended to increase after the impounded sites changed from a stable lentic environment to an unstable lotic environment, supporting predictions made by life-history theory. Our results suggest that small-dam removal may provide ecological benefits by restoring fish assemblages to a more natural riverine state and reversing the negative effects of dam construction on the ecosystem. We demonstrate that combining both trait-based and taxonomic approaches can improve our ecological understanding of the impacts of dam removal on fish assemblages and provide relevant data for local management.
This technical report summarizes the methods and results of a comprehensive riparian restoration planning effort for the Gila Valley Restoration Planning Area, an approximately 53-mile portion of the upper Gila River in Arizona (Figure 1-1). This planning effort has developed a Restoration Framework intended to deliver science-based guidance on suitable riparian restoration actions within the ecologically sensitive river corridor. The framework development was conducted by a restoration science team, led by Stillwater Sciences with contributions from researchers at the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), Northern Arizona University (NAU), University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). All work was coordinated by the Gila Watershed Partnership of Arizona (GWP), whose broader Upper Gila River Project Area is depicted in Figure 1-1, with funding from the Walton Family Foundation’s Freshwater Initiative Program.
Invasive species threaten island biodiversity globally. For example, the Shiny Cowbird ( Molothrus bonariensis ) parasitizes many of Puerto Rico’s endemic species, particularly in the open forests in the island’s southwest. Less is known, however, about cowbird parasitism in the agro-ecological highlands, which contain a patchwork of forests, shaded-coffee plantations, and coffee farms without shade. In this paper, we estimated co-occurrence rates, a potential indicator of parasitism rates, between the cowbird and four host species across these three land uses, hypothesizing that cowbirds would most likely co-occur with their hosts in shaded-coffee farms. We also hypothesized that the presence of host species would increase the probability of cowbird occurrence. To investigate these hypotheses, we developed three Bayesian hierarchical occupancy models: one where the hosts and parasite occurred independently, one that used the latent host species richness as a predictor of cowbird occurrence, and one that used each latent host occurrence state as predictors. These methods addressed observation errors and appropriately propagated error to our predictions of co-occurrence rates. We selected the best performing model using WAIC, then used it to predict co-occurrence rates. While there was some evidence that host species richness increased the probability of cowbirds, the parsimonious model assumed no interaction. With this model, we found that cowbirds were more likely to overlap with certain hosts in shaded-coffee plantations. This may suggest increased parasitism at these plantations, potentially presenting challenges for managers who advocate for shade restoration to gain ecological services such as biodiversity conservation.
A primary goal of many coastal restoration programs is to increase nekton habitat in terms of both quantity and quality. Using shallow water ponds rehabilitated with a technique called marsh terracing, we examined the quality of nekton habitat created, using and comparing several metrics including nekton density and diversity, functional group composition, and weight-length relationships as indirect measures of habitat quality. We examined three paired terraced and unterraced marsh ponds in southwest Louisiana. Nekton, submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), and soil and water quality variables were sampled bimonthly from April 2004 through April 2005 at four subtidal habitat types: terraced nearshore, terraced open water, unterraced nearshore, and unterraced open water. Results indicate that terraced ponds had increased the habitat value of degrading unterraced ponds over open water areas for estuarine nekton; nekton density and richness were similar between terraced and unterraced nearshore habitat types, but greater at all nearshore as compared to open water sites. Analysis of the distribution of nekton functional groups and weight:length ratios indicates the terraced and unterraced pond habitats were not functioning similarly: distribution of nekton functional groups differed significantly between habitat types with greater percentages of benthic-oriented species at unterraced open water habitats and higher percentage of open water species in terraced ponds as compared to unterraced ponds, and two of the six numerically dominant fish species had greater weight-length relationships in unterraced ponds as compared to terraced ponds. This lack of functional equivalency may be attributed to environmental differences between terraced and unterraced ponds such as water depth or SAV biomass, or the relatively young age of the terraces studied, which may not have allowed for the development of some critical habitat variables, such as soil organic matter that was found to be significantly lower in terraced versus unterraced ponds (p < 0.05). To properly assess the ecological equivalency of restored or rehabilitated sites for nekton requires that we move beyond measures of nekton density, biomass, and diversity and incorporate measures of functional equivalency, including habitat measures.
During coastal wetland restoration, foundation plant species play a critical role in creating habitat, modulating ecosystem functions, and supporting ecological communities. Following initial hydrologic restoration, foundation plant species can help stabilize sediments and jump-start ecosystem development. Different foundation species, however, have different traits and environmental tolerances. To understand how these traits and tolerances impact restoration trajectories, there is a need for comparative studies among foundation species. In subtropical and tropical climates, coastal wetland restoration practitioners can sometimes choose between salt marsh and/or mangrove foundation species. Here, we compared the early life history traits and environmental tolerances of two foundation species: (1) a salt marsh grass (Spartina alterniflora), and (2) a mangrove tree (Avicennia germinans). In an 18-month study of a recently-restored coastal wetland in southeastern Louisiana (USA), we examined growth and survival along an elevation gradient and compared expansion and recruitment rates. We found that the rapid growth, expansion, and recruitment rates of the salt marsh grass make it a better species for quickly establishing ecological structure at suitable elevations. The slower growth, limited expansion, and lower recruitment of the mangrove species show its limited capacity for immediate structural restoration, especially in areas where it co-occurs with perennial salt marsh foundation species. Our findings suggest that the structural attributes needed in recently-restored areas (e.g., erosion control, vegetation structure) can be achieved more quickly using fast-growing foundation marsh species. Following salt marsh grass establishment, mangroves can then be used to further assist ecosystem development. This work highlights how appropriate foundation species can help jump-start ecosystem development to meet restoration objectives.
Green Lake, located in central Wisconsin USA within a watershed with land use dominated by agriculture, is listed as impaired under Sect. 303(d) of the Clean Water Act. The primary tributary, Silver Creek, is also impaired because of high total phosphorus (TP) concentrations. Silver Creek flows through a shallow marsh before reaching the lake. Prior to 2006, the marsh was turbid and free of macrophytes. Efforts to restrict carp ( Cyprinus carpio ) in the marsh and reduce the primary upstream phosphorus point source, resulted in the marsh becoming a clear-water, macrophyte-dominated system. The point source reduction and marsh phytoplankton-to-macrophyte shift reduced the export of TP and suspended sediment (SS). These measured reductions at the marsh outlet exceeded the documented reductions in the upstream point source suggesting that the shift to a macrophyte-dominated system drove part of the TP reductions. TP loads at the marsh outlet significantly decreased in all seasons; however, SS loads significantly decreased in all seasons except winter, suggesting the vegetation shift was an important driver for these reductions. During 2012–2017, the marsh served as an overall sink for TP and SS, retaining on average 1.59 kg/day and 0.95 MT/day, respectively. Overall, this study documents benefits of a multi-stakeholder, collaborative ecological effort to restore a marsh from a turbid system to a macrophyte-dominated system, which resulted in significant reductions in downstream TP and SS loading to a major inland lake. This effort may serve as a model for similar restorations in other watersheds with land use dominated by agriculture.
Recent studies suggest that stream restoration at the reach scale may not increase stream biodiversity, raising concerns about the utility of this conservation practice. We examined whether reach-scale restoration in disturbed agricultural streams was associated with changes in macroinvertebrate community structure (total macroinvertebrate taxon richness, total macroinvertebrate density, Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera, Trichoptera [EPT] taxon richness, % abundance of EPT taxa) or secondary production (macroinvertebrate biomass over time). We collected macroinvertebrate samples over the course of 1 y from restored and unrestored reaches of 3 streams in southern Minnesota and used generalized least-square (GLS) models to assess whether measures of community structure were related to reach type, stream site, or sampling month. After accounting for effects of stream site and time, we found no significant difference in total taxon richness or % abundance of EPT taxa between restored and unrestored reaches. However, the number of EPT taxa and macroinvertebrate density were significantly higher in restored than in unrestored reaches. We compared secondary production estimates among study reaches based on 95 th -percentile confidence intervals generated via bootstrapping. In each study stream, secondary production was significantly (2–3×) higher in the restored than in the unrestored reach. Higher productivity in the restored reaches was largely a result of the disproportionate success of a few dominant, tolerant taxa. Our findings suggest that reach-scale restoration may have ecological effects that are not detected by measures of total taxon richness alone.
Fire is a natural, dynamic process that is integral to maintaining ecosystem function. The reintroduction of fire (e.g., prescribed fire, managed wildfire) is a critical management tool for protecting many frequent-fire forests against stand-replacing fires while restoring an essential ecological process. Understanding the effects of fire on forests and wildlife communities is important in natural resource planning efforts. Small mammals are key components of forest food webs and essential to ecosystem function. To investigate the relationship of fire to small mammal assemblages, we live trapped small mammals in 10 burned and 10 unburned forests over 2 years in the central Sierra Nevada, California. Small mammal abundance was higher in unburned forests, largely reflecting the greater proportion of closed-canopy species such as Glaucomys sabrinus in unburned forests. The most abundant species across the entire study area was the highly adaptable generalist species, Peromyscus maniculatus . Species diversity was similar between burned and unburned forests, but burned forests were characterized by greater habitat heterogeneity and higher small mammal species evenness. The use and reintroduction of fire to maintain a matrix of burn severities, including large patches of unburned refugia, creates a heterogeneous and resilient landscape that allows for fire-sensitive species to proliferate and, as such, may help maintain key ecological functions and diverse small mammal assemblages.
Research is needed to determine how seepage-control actions planned by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) will affect recharge, groundwater flow, and discharge within the dual-porosity karstic Biscayne aquifer where it extends eastward from the Everglades to Biscayne Bay. A key issue is whether the plan can be accomplished without causing urban flooding in adjacent populated areas and diminishing coastal freshwater flow needed in the restoration of the ecologic systems. Predictive simulation of groundwater flow is a prudent approach to understanding hydrologic change and potential ecologic impacts. A fundamental problem to simulation of karst groundwater flow is how best to represent aquifer heterogeneity. Currently, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers and academic partners are applying multiple innovative technologies to characterize the spatial distribution of porosity and permeability within the Biscayne aquifer.
In this paper we describe an application of a GIS-based multi-criteria decision support web tool that models and evaluates relative changes in ecosystem services to policy and land management decisions. The Santa Cruz Watershed Ecosystem Portfolio (SCWEPM) was designed to provide credible forecasts of responses to ecosystem drivers and stressors and to illustrate the role of land use decisions on spatial and temporal distributions of ecosystem services within a binational (U.S. and Mexico) watershed. We present two SCWEPM sub-models that when analyzed together address bidirectional relationships between social and ecological vulnerability and ecosystem services. The first model employs the Modified Socio-Environmental Vulnerability Index (M-SEVI), which assesses community vulnerability using information from U.S. and Mexico censuses on education, access to resources, migratory status, housing situation, and number of dependents. The second, relating land cover change to biodiversity (provisioning services), models changes in the distribution of terrestrial vertebrate habitat based on multitemporal vegetation and land cover maps, wildlife habitat relationships, and changes in land use/land cover patterns. When assessed concurrently, the models exposed some unexpected relationships between vulnerable communities and ecosystem services provisioning. For instance, the most species-rich habitat type in the watershed, Desert Riparian Forest, increased over time in areas occupied by the most vulnerable populations and declined in areas with less vulnerable populations. This type of information can be used to identify ecological conservation and restoration targets that enhance the livelihoods of people in vulnerable communities and promote biodiversity and ecosystem health.
Since 2008, large-scale restoration programs have been implemented along the Willamette River, Oregon, to address historical losses of floodplain habitats caused by dam construction, bank protection, large wood removal, land conversion, and other anthropogenic influences. The Willamette Focused Investment Partnership (WFIP) restoration initiative brings together more than 16 organizations to improve floodplain habitats on more than 35,000 hectares upstream from Willamette Falls with the overarching goal to expand and enhance native fish habitats through the following restoration activities implemented along the floodplains and off-channel areas of the Willamette River: (A) modify floodplain topography and human-made barriers to inundation; (B) enhance gravel pits; (C) remove revetments; (D) construct off-channel features; (E) increase and enhance floodplain forest vegetation; and (F) treat aquatic invasive plant species (AIS). The WFIP Effectiveness Monitoring Program was initiated to inform future refinement of Willamette River restoration program goals and activities and has three goals: (1) evaluate the effectiveness of different restoration activities at increasing and enhancing native fish habitat, (2) improve overall understanding of the physical and ecological responses associated with different restoration activities undertaken by the WFIP, and (3) relate site-scale responses to restoration with broader patterns of fish communities, hydrogeomorphology, stream temperature, and vegetation across the Willamette River floodplain, so that the relative importance of restoration activities on habitat availability for native fish can be assessed. A monitoring framework was developed to evaluate effectiveness of floodplain restoration activities at increasing and enhancing habitat for native fish in the Willamette River corridor, northwestern Oregon. This framework describes monitoring indicators, metrics, and approaches for evaluating responses in native fish communities and physical habitat conditions to restoration activities and determining effectiveness of restoration activities at improving habitats for native fish. The monitoring indicators and approaches are grouped into five restoration monitoring categories that are useful for characterizing ecological and physical habitat responses to restoration activities: fish, hydrogeomorphology, floodplain forest vegetation, birds, and AIS. This monitoring framework provides a common science foundation to support collaborative decisions on future interdisciplinary effectiveness monitoring activities for Willamette River restoration programs. To evaluate restoration effectiveness, data must be evaluated according to metrics and thresholds that permit direct comparison between habitat conditions at the restoration site and restoration program goals; this framework provides examples of metrics and thresholds for evaluating data, recognizing that the precise evaluation criteria for a particular site or program will need to be tailored to meet program questions and available resources. Refining restoration goals and activities as part of an adaptively managed process requires addressing critical uncertainties between restoration goals, restoration activities, and outcomes for habitats used by native fish. Although the monitoring activities of this framework will generate important datasets useful for evaluating restoration effectiveness, additional research, syntheses, and reporting is ultimately necessary to provide a common science foundation to support adaptively managed restoration programs. This report is intended as a resource for restoration program managers, practitioners, scientists, and contractors as they develop detailed annual monitoring plans for data collection and identify the monitoring indicators, metrics, and approaches that are appropriate for evaluating effectiveness of different restoration activities.