CHAPTER 1 

 INTRODUCTION 



1.1 PURPOSE AND ORGANIZATION 

 OF THE REPORT 



In recent years man's cultural 

 and economic development have accel- 

 erated at an unprecedented pace. 

 Inevitably this development precipi- 

 tates rapid change in the environ- 

 mental conditions to which plants 

 and animals have adapted. Wide- 

 spread habitat destruction, sewage 

 and industrial effluent discharge, 

 ground and surface water diversion, 

 and urban and agricultural runoff 

 are but a few of the inevitable by- 

 products of development that exert 

 acute as well as chronic effects on 

 the land, water, and biota. 



Particularly within the highly 

 developed and rapidly changing 

 coastal zone, a fine line is emerg- 

 ing between what is considered 

 healthy economic development and 

 what must be conserved to insure a 

 healthy and productive balance 

 between man and nature. Often, in 

 deciding where this line lies, there 

 is much confusion as well as uncer- 

 tainty over exactly what natural 

 resources exist in an area, and how 

 they function. This report is an 

 attempt to alleviate this confusion 

 and uncertainty. 



This document is the culmina- 

 tion of an extensive review of 

 published and unpublished literature 

 on pertinent ecological processes 

 within the study area. In contrast 

 to conventional literature reviews 

 and syntheses, the present document 

 deliberately crosses disciplinary 

 boundaries in an effort to focus on 

 how the watershed functions as an 

 integrated ecological system. At 



the core of this focus is the basic 

 question, "How do energies and 



materials flow through the lower 

 Everglades, Florida Bay, and Florida 

 Keys watershed?" 



In answering this question, the 

 document is divided into two parts, 

 one on physical/chemical background 

 conditions, and the other on struc- 

 tural and functional ecological 

 patterns of energy utilization. The 

 first part identifies spatial and 

 temporal patterns in the distribu- 

 tion of physical/chemical forces 

 which drive the metabolism of the 

 study area. In this regard chapters 

 2 through 5 are presented, covering 

 the physiography of the study area, 

 its climate, its geology, and char- 

 acteristics of hydrology and water 

 quality. The second part describes 

 the overall habitat zonations that 

 develop in response to physical/ 

 chemical controls, as well as perti- 

 nent patterns of resource partition- 

 ing (e.g., productivity, species 

 utilization and dependence, succes- 

 sion, etc.) between and within 

 individual habitats. Our treatment 

 of these patterns is divided into 

 four chapters (6 through 9) corre- 

 sponding to major ecological zones 

 as explained in Section 1.4. 



1.2 THE STUDY AREA 



The study area includes three 

 major subunits: (1) the lower Ever- 

 glades; (2) Taylor Slough/Florida 

 Bay; and (3) the Florida Keys 

 (Figure 1). The central component 

 of the lower Everglades is Shark 

 River Slough, a broad expanse of 

 sawgrass marsh studded with occa- 

 sional tree islands, or hammocks. 

 The lower Everglades sub-area is 

 bounded on the northeast by the 

 intersection of Tamiami Trail and 

 South Florida Water Management 



