Potential Impacts of Everglades Restoration on Lobster and Hard Bottom Communities in the Florida Keys, FL (USA)
Article
Butler, MJ, Dolan, TW. (2017). Potential Impacts of Everglades Restoration on Lobster and Hard Bottom Communities in the Florida Keys, FL (USA)
. ESTUARIES AND COASTS, 40(6), 1523-1539. 10.1007/s12237-017-0256-8
Butler, MJ, Dolan, TW. (2017). Potential Impacts of Everglades Restoration on Lobster and Hard Bottom Communities in the Florida Keys, FL (USA)
. ESTUARIES AND COASTS, 40(6), 1523-1539. 10.1007/s12237-017-0256-8
The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) is intended to restore the Everglades ecosystem (FL, USA) by altering its hydrology, with likely consequences for “downstream” estuarine and marine communities in Florida Bay and the Florida Keys. Spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) are among several species of special concern with respect to CERP because they are of economic and ecological importance and because their nursery habitat may be impacted. We used agent-based, spatially explicit modeling to evaluate the possible impacts of changing water quality (temperature, salinity, harmful algal blooms (HABs)) on spiny lobsters and sponges, the latter of which provide shelter for juvenile lobsters. In our simulations, lobster abundance declined 6–24% in scenarios where salinity either decreased alone or in combination with HABs that kill sponges and are associated with changing water quality. The most severe decline in lobsters occurred when salinity was lowest and HABs occurred annually. One third of this decline was attributable to decreased salinity that increased lobster mortality and movement. However, the greatest impacts on lobsters were indirect. CERP-associated changes in salinity along with HABs caused a die-off of large sponges, resulting in higher predatory mortality on lobsters that depend on sponges for shelter in hard bottom nursery habitats. Sponges declined by ∼50% in simulations with HABs, whereas decreased salinity alone led to sponge mortality of 9–18%. In contrast, higher temperatures increased juvenile lobster growth and eventual recruitment by approximately 7%. Our results suggest that returning Florida Bay to more estuarine, pre-development conditions is likely to result in an ecosystem reversal that is detrimental to stenohaline marine taxa, a scenario with significant socioeconomic implications.
