RECOVER MAP 3.2.3.3 - South Florida Fisheries Habitat Assessment Program (FHAP-SF)

The goal of this project is to provide information for the spatial assessment and resolution of inter-annual variability in seagrass communities and to establish a baseline to monitorresponses of seagrass communities to water-management alterations associated with the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP activities). FHAP-SF is documenting the status and trends of seagrass distribution, abundance, reproductive and physiological status (ecoindicators), as well as providing process-oriented data such as photosynthetic quantum yields and epiphyte loads. Resource managers will be able to use the data to address ecosystem-response issues on a real-time basis and to weigh alternative restoration options. The purpose of this project is to develop a basic understanding of the relationships among salinity, water quality and seagreass species distribution and abundance in South Florida, to provide data to separate anthropogenically induced changes from natural ecosystem variation and to verify model predictions on species and ecosystem-level responses to system perturbations.