Overview: The Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE LTER) program addresses how climate change and freshwater management decisions interact to influence water sources and chemistry, ecological processes, and the value and utilization of ecosystem services. The FCE LTER has been operating since 2000, and this research for the first two years of our fourth cycle of funding (FCE IV) expanded on our prior discoveries of unanticipated and unprecedented rates of change in social-ecological drivers and ecosystem structure and function. Our research framework integrated concepts of 'ecosystem development,' 'hydrologic connectivity,' and 'pulsed stability' to understand responses of coastal ecosystems to rapid climate change, especially rising sea level, and changing governance of fresh water. These concepts were integrated through: (i) continued long-term assessment of changes in biogeochemistry, primary production, organic matter, and trophic dynamics in ecosystems along freshwater-to-marine gradients, (ii) maintenance of existing in situ and ex situ long-term experiments, (iii) use of high-resolution remote sensing and models to forecast landscape-scale changes, (iv) addition of synoptic satellite sites to capture discrete spatio-temporal responses to episodic disturbances, and (v) initiation of new experimental manipulations to determine drivers and mechanisms of resilience to saltwater intrusion. Our data syntheses integrated month-to-annual and inter-annual data into models of water, nutrients, carbon, and species dynamics throughout the Everglades landscape to determine how ecosystems with different productivities and carbon stores respond (maintain, increase, or decline) to short- (pulses) and long-term changes (presses) in hydrologic connectivity.

Intellectual Merit:  Our long-term climate and hydrologic data and new satellite-based observations showed how our lower elevation coastal drainage is more exposed to the effects of sea level rise than the larger, but higher elevation drainage. Subsequent above and below-ground intrusion of saltwater - a key stressor - and the limiting nutrient, phosphorus (P) - the primary resource - interact to regulate marsh, mangrove, and seagrass plant growth, as well as the transport and breakdown of organic matter by microbial communities. Although the press of seawater intrusion appears to be reducing marsh plant growth and microbial diversity, hurricane pulses leave long-lasting P legacies that facilitate rapid recovery from wind defoliation and salt stress. Together with increasing managed delivery of fresh water through successful implementation of restoration projects, these coastal P supplies are enhancing the availability of the limiting nutrient throughout the ecosystem. A deliberate expansion of research on mobile food webs has enabled our program to track the effects of changing presses and pulses on prey access by predators, and the potential role of animals as important nutrient vectors. A similar expansion of our eddy covariance tower network has enabled the FCE to show that (1) the press increase in water depths driven by rising seas and freshwater restoration weakens carbon removal by marshes, creating a positive feedback to climate change, (2) hurricane pulses shift coastal forests from carbon sinks to sources, but only temporarily, (3) mangrove forest sequestration of carbon dioxide offsets methane emissions, and (4) particulate inorganic carbon precipitation is an important component of coastal carbon fluxes in carbonate ecosystems. Through cross-site synthesis activities, the FCE program has improved coastal modeling approaches to predict movements of the marsh-mangrove ecotone under climate and restoration scenarios, contributed to a book on environmental politics, and provided a framework for studying the effects of hurricanes on coastal ecosystems.

Broader Impacts:  Based at FIU, the FCE program reaches a majority-minority undergraduate student body and local community through an expansive research experience program engaging students and teachers. The FCE graduate student organization is large, active, and diverse, and productive. Communications include an information-rich, user-friendly website and newsletter. FCE integrates the public directly in science discoveries by including agency scientists and decision-makers as senior scientists to facilitate the co-production of science. FCE is a leader in engaging cross-site and international research activities to understand the Everglades in the context of other coastal wetlands, and to examine the development dynamics of social-ecological systems under rapid environmental change. The FCE continued an intensive K-12 Schoolyard Program, and developed a new Research Experience for Teachers Program, provided authentic Research Experiences for Undergraduates through community partnerships, advised the National Academies Committee on Independent Review of Everglades Restoration Progress, and was uniquely engaged in public outreach through the integration of LTER science, the arts, and humanities through our Artists in Residence Program.

Last Modified: 02/07/2023
Modified by: Evelyn E Gaiser