Independent Wetland Vegetation Response to Climate Variability and Anthropogenic Hydrologic Control, Everglades, FL, USA

The response of a wetland landscape composed of multiple, distinct, plant communities to a single stimulus, whether it results from natural climate variability or human alterations, should not be assumed to be uniform across the entire landscape. The Florida Everglades is such a landscape where elevated sawgrass ridges are immediately next to water lily dominated sloughs, known collectively as the sawgrass ridge and slough landscape (SRS). The distribution of the Everglades individual sawgrass ridge and slough plant communities within the SRS was altered by 20th century construction of water control structures (canals, levees, and dikes) and alteration of the natural hydrologic regime. Although restoration planning to stabilize the remaining ridge and slough habitats is underway, little is known about the landscape's origin and response to past hydrologic changes. Analysis of pollen assemblages from transects of piston cores collected across SRS indicate that sawgrass ridges and sloughs have been vegetationally distinct from one another since the mid Holocene. Modern sawgrass ridges formed from a marsh-like environment, whereas slough communities occupied their present sites throughout the history of the sites. Ridge formation was triggered by intervals of drier climate (i.e., the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age) and changes in the mean position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The sloughs are temporarily composed of more marsh plants during drier conditions, but quickly return to their original state when precipitation increases. During the 20th century, sloughs appear to be strongly influenced by North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) variability in spite of water management practices, while the sawgrass ridges respond primarily to [water management] anthropogenic changes in hydrology. Our evidence that, the sawgrass ridge and slough landscape communities can act independent of one another to changes in hydrology, indicates that restoring the pre-20th century hydrology may not restore all aspects of the pre-20th century landscape structure.