PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 5: Aquatic Ecology: System Heterogeneity
Monday, August 8, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 515 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

Hydrological and water quality controls on ecosystem-level periphyton mat dynamics in the southern Everglades.

Iwaniec, David^*,1, Childers, Daniel¹, ¹ Florida International University, Miami, FL

ABSTRACT- Hydrology and water quality are extremely important regulators of the Everglades landscape. We quantify periphyton mat metabolism, nutrient content, and biomass from three southern Everglades basins, with focus on water source and timing differences. Water nutrient concentrations, nutrient loadings, and hydroperiods are quantified from grab samples taken during periphyton sampling and from water-level gauges. Hydrology and water quality within the three compared basins are rain-driven, canal-driven, and canal-driven with enhanced flow. Although all three basins are characterized as short hydroperiod, phosphorus-limited oligotrophic wetlands, periphyton dynamics display a large amount of variability. The abundant and fast-responding periphyton mats are an ideal system to investigate hydrology and water quality regulation within the Everglades ecosystem. This unique ecosystem component dominates carbon and nutrient processing in much of the freshwater basins in the southern Everglades. Rapid turnover rates, rapid phosphorus and nitrogen uptake rates, and high carbon fixation rates characterize periphyton as an extremely important Everglades ecosystem component. Results indicate that periphyton dynamics are highly regulated by water source and timing, and extremely responsive to small changes in water quality. Additionally, results suggest that low periphyton biomass, high periphyton NPP and high periphyton phosphorus content are good indicators of enrichment in the southern Everglades.

Key words: periphyton, Everglades