ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH FOR AQUATIC SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION IN SOUTH FLORIDA

The theme of this feature—the land–water interface: science for a sustainable biosphere—provides a forum to highlight the relationship between science and resource management, using restoration of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades (KOE) ecosystem of south Florida as a case study. This subtropical ecosystem encompasses 16 counties and 44 000 km2, from the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes in central Florida to the shallow estuarine waters of Florida Bay, and is within the jurisdiction of the South Florida Water Management District. During the next two decades, the floodplain and channel of the Kissimmee River will be re-coupled into a meandering river system with riparian wetlands and a more natural hydrology. An evaluation program on this restoration has been designed using ecological concepts and will provide opportunities to corroborate river/floodplain theory and document the varied responses of biotic communities to hydrological restoration. The evaluation program will provide the information needed for adaptive management of the river/floodplain ecosystem. Scientists and engineers are testing an array of ecological hypotheses on Lake Okeechobee, a central feature of the KOE ecosystem, to reduce uncertainty in predicting responses to nutrient loading, lake stage variation, and exotic species invasion. Research on the lake has clarified the linkage between physical factors, nutrient levels and biotic variables, and the frequency of algal blooms. This information has been used to support decisions and plans for managing the lake and its watershed. Restoration of the Florida Everglades is grounded in a diverse suite of scientific projects that are contributing to wetland science, ecosystem modeling, and restoration ecology. Studies on the effects of nutrients on wetland ecosystem structure and function have provided information at several spatial scales which is being applied directly to management issues. Findings from research and monitoring have been crucial in supporting decisions on the completion of six large stormwater treatment areas in the Everglades Construction Project. At the southern edge of the ecosystem, Florida Bay has been the focus of intensive research leading to changing paradigms on the relative effects of nutrients, turbidity, physical factors, and fresh water on the functions of this unique estuary. Scientific findings on the bay support the current direction of management actions to increase freshwater inputs from the southern Everglades, although much remains to be learned about this subtropical system. Management-oriented research has contributed to a large increase in the rate of scientific publication on the KOE ecosystem. Approximately 1500 articles have been published on the system in the 1990s, and these have contributed to advancing basic science as well as resource management. Ecological reports being published on the ecosystem use state-of-the-art approaches to time and space scales and appropriate blends of monitoring, experimentation, and modeling. Peer review and interagency cooperative planning have fostered relevant, timely, and objective science. The application of science to decision making in adaptive resource management plays an important role by clarifying those facts and concepts with the most significant predictive value for management and heuristic value for fundamental science. Improvement of the science–management linkage in south Florida and elsewhere awaits better interaction between scientists and managers in planning research and more effective communication of research findings. Relevant scientific information of high quality, particularly when published in the peer-reviewed literature, cannot be distorted easily and is vital to support informed and equitable social choices in the decision-making process.