Biscayne Bay is a highly diverse estuary with high water quality and mostly healthy ecological communities, in spite of being adjacent to the major urban areas of South Florida. The Bay is extensively utilized for recreational boating and fishing, commercial shrimp fishing, diving, and other activities. Much of the area is contained within the boundaries of the Biscayne National Park and, thus, under strong management control. Changes in salinity, turbidity, and nutrients are potential risks to Biscayne Bay, as is the extensive overfishing of the South Florida coastal waters. The Florida Keys supports a rich tropical marine ecosystem, productive multispecies coral reef fisheries, and a billion dollar tourist economy.
Coral reefs are a particular focus of concern.
Thus, the overall objective of this COP-funded research project is to advance the scientific understanding of the coastal ecosystems of South Florida and their anthropogenic risks, focusing on integration across biological, chemical, and physical systems, integration of field and experimental research with model development, and integration of scientific research with the policy needs for managing the coastal environment. Consequently, the various studies on the environment of South Florida provide a case study for advancing our ability in general to bring science to bear on regional environmental management and decision-making. It conducts extensive development of conceptual models of the various ecosystem types of the coastal region, and has initiated a new activity to develop a hierarchical set of models of the coral reef ecosystem, with attention to coral-algal interactions and effects of changes in herbivory. The Seascape unit is also conducting extensive field studies to characterize these coastal ecosystems and their stress regime. One major goal is to link explicitly the population and community dynamics of important fish and invertebrate species with the habitat characteristics of the coastal ecosystems, a focus of the Seascape unit, as well as physical stressor characteristics, such as the salinity regime as simulated by the Physical and Hydrodynamics unit.