Abstract
In this special issue, we report on efforts to reconstruct paleoclimate/paleolimnology of the Florida Everglades, applying a wide range of techniques including sedimentological, micropaleontological and biogeochemical approaches. The papers included here describe results obtained by studies conducted in Everglades National Park and the greater South Florida Everglades by Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research Program (FCE LTER) collaborators. This multi-investigator project contrasts nutrient dynamics in two inland-to-marine transects aligned along separate drainages in southern Florida that differ in their susceptibility to coastal pressures and in volume of freshwater delivery. This effort focuses on the paleoecological aspects of FCE LTER research that address scales of ecosystem transformations driven by climate variability and change and human activities. The central question addressed by this body of work is “How is the shape of the freshwater-to-marine gradient in the Florida coastal Everglades controlled by changes in climate, freshwater inflow (i.e. through human activities), and disturbance (i.e. sea level rise, hurricanes, fire)?”
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bernhardt CE, Willard DA (2009) Response of the Everglades ridge and slough landscape to climate variability and 20th-century water management. Ecol Appl 19:1723–1738
Enfield DB (1996) Relationships of Inter-American rainfall to Tropical Atlantic and Pacific SST variability. Geophys Res Lett 23:3305–3308
Enfield DB, Mestas-Nuñez AM, Trimble PJ (2001) The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation and its relation to rainfall and river flows in the continental US. Geophys Res Lett 28:2077–2080
Henry JA, Portier KM, Coyne J (1994) The climate and weather of Florida. Pineapple Press, Inc., Sarasota
Moses CS, Anderson WT, Saunders C, Sklar F (2012) Regional gradients in precipitation and temperature in response to the climate teleconnections in the Greater Everglades ecosystem of South Florida. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-012-9635-0
Pearce C, Cremer H, Lammertsma E, Wagner-Cremer F (2012) A 2,500-year record of environmental change in Highlands Hammock State Park (Central Florida USA) inferred from siliceous microfossils. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-011-9557-2
Quillen AK, Gaiser EE, Grimm EC (2012) Diatom-based paleolimnological reconstruction of regional climate and local land-use change from a protected sinkhole lake in southern Florida USA. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-011-9558-1
Sanchez C, Gaiser EE, Saunders CJ, Wachnicka AH, Oehm N, Craft C (2012) Challenges in using siliceous subfossil as a tool for inferring past water level and hydro period in Everglades marshes. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-012-9624-3
Wachnicka A, Gaiser EE, Collins LS (2012a) Response of diatom assemblages to 130 years of environmental change in Florida Bay (USA). J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-011-9556-3
Wachnicka A, Gaiser E, Collins LS (2012b) Correspondence of historic salinity fluctuations in Florida Bay, USA, to atmospheric variability and anthropogenic changes. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-011-9534-9
Waters MN, Smoak JM, Saunders CJ (2012) Historic primary producer communities linked to water quality and hydrologic changes in the Northern Everglades. J Paleolimnol. doi:10.1007/s10933-011-9569-y
Williard DA, Bernhardt CE (2011) Impacts of past climate and sea level change on Everglades wetlands: placing a century of anthropogenic change into a late-Holocene context. Clim Chang 107:59–80
Acknowledgments
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Grant Nos. DEB-9910514 and DBI-0620409. Additional financial support was provided by the Southeast Environmental Research Center’s Miccosukee Tribe of Indians Endowment for Everglades Studies at Florida International University and from the South Florida Water Management District (PO#4500033935). All the contributing authors express their sincere gratitude to our donors for their support. This is SERC contribution 579.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anderson, W.T., Gaiser, E.E. Paleoenvironmental change in wetlands of the Florida Everglades, southeast USA. J Paleolimnol 49, 1–3 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9665-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9665-7