FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Sept. 2, 2014
MANGROVE RESTORATION STUDY UNDERWAY IN ROOKERY BAY RESERVE
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Research partnership with USGS will assess natural community’s response to
restoration efforts ~
Nicole Cormier (left), an ecologist with the US Geological Survey’s National Wetlands Research Center in
Lafayette, Louisiana, holds a stainless steel rod in place while it is being
driven into the sediment at Fruit Farm Creek near Goodland.
NAPLES – Rookery
Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve has entered into a research partnership
with the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) to conduct a long-term study of a
mangrove die-off area near Goodland. USGS awarded funding to this project for a
minimum of three years to assess the 225-acre hydrologic restoration, partially
underway, at Fruit Farm Creek.
Fruit
Farm Creek is a mangrove-forested site located within the boundaries of the
Rookery Bay Reserve, near Goodland on the Southwest Gulf coast of Florida.
Construction of State Road 92, initiated in 1938, greatly altered natural tidal
flushing to mangrove wetlands in the area. In particular, incoming flow from
higher tides inundates the forest but cannot readily be flushed out, creating a
“bathtub effect” that holds the water for longer periods than these forests
would normally experience. Summer rains compound this effect. Following the heavy,
flooding rains from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, the area has experienced a slow,
steady die-off of approximately 65 acres of mangroves.
The
reserve has partnered with the Coastal Resources Group, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and the city of Marco
Island to conduct the initial assessment of the area’s hydrology and produce a
plan for restoring the affected mangrove forests.
“We
have examples of how hydrological restoration works in other locations,” said
Kevin Cunniff, research coordinator for Rookery Bay Reserve. “A long-term
assessment of forest community change and recovery over the next decade will provide
invaluable information regarding the resiliency of our mangrove wetlands and the
cost/benefits of restoration.”
USGS
has just installed 12 Rod Surface Elevation Tables (RSETs) in order to monitor
surface elevation change associated with mangrove forest recovery within the
study plots, which span a gradient of dead, degraded and intact forest. Initial
assessments of the forest canopy, sediment conditions and plant/animal
communities will begin early in 2015. Three reference area study plots, also including
RSETs, will be established on the south end of Horrs Island adjacent to Fruit
Farm Creek in November 2014. Long-term data collected will provide information
on trends in forest canopy structure, sediment chemistry and nutrient cycling,
and benthic faunal community and food-web structure.
In
August 2013, a series of small trenches were excavated to re-establish tidal
connection to one acre of a four-acre die-off area. Within one year, the return
of normal tidal flushing has produced a dramatic response — mangrove seedlings are
taking root and many of the characteristic fish, crabs, snails and other species
have moved in. The project partners are still seeking additional funding to
restore flushing to the remaining 224 adjacent acres. It is on the list of
projects under consideration for federal funding through the Resources and
Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revived Economies of the
Gulf Coast Act (RESTORE Act).
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