CHAPTER 9 

 THE FLORIDA KEYS 



9.1 PREVIOUS LITERATURE 

 REVIEWS AND SYNTHESIS 



In addition to the recent man- 

 grove and seagrass reviews by Odum 

 et al. (1982) and Zieman (1982) res- 

 pectively, Jaap (1982) reviews coral 

 reef ecology in a document entitled 

 Ecology of the Coral Reefs of South 

 Florida: A Community Profile . To- 

 gether these three documents cover 

 the literature on the major communi- 

 ties present in the Florida Keys. 

 It is strongly suggested that the 

 reader consult these documents for a 

 more complete review of the autecol- 

 ogy and synecology of the respective 

 communities. As in Chapters 7 and 

 8, the following discussion presents 

 a geographically limited summary of 

 the total information available. 



9.2 HABITAT ZONATION 



Figure 56 (from Browder et al. 

 1973) identifies the general habitat 

 zonations of the terrestrial, estu- 

 arine, and salt water wetland eco- 

 systems for the Florida Keys and 

 their nearshore environment. Man- 

 grove swamps and forests, tropical 

 hardwood hammocks, and urban devel- 

 opment dominate the terrestrial and 

 wetland areas. The marine environ- 

 ment, which dwarfs the land area of 

 the Keys, is composed primarily of 

 coral reefs, marine meadows, high 

 velocity channels, and coastal 

 plankton systems. Salt marshes and 

 prairies which do not show up on the 

 map at this scale are interspersed 

 within the mangroves particularly 

 along the northwestern or Gulf/Bay 

 sides of the islands (Davis 1913). 

 Beach and dune strand communities 

 are found on the slightly elevated 

 seaward ridges of the distal islands 

 and on several of the upper and 

 lower Keys (Davis 1942). 



Historic habitat zonation with- 

 in the Florida Keys falls within 

 three general geographic categories, 

 including: (1) emergent and terres- 

 trial habitats; (2) shoreline or 

 intertidal habitats; and (3) marine 

 habitats. 



General characteristics of the 

 terrestrial and emergent habitats 

 found in the Keys are similar to 

 those previously discussed in Chap- 

 ters 6, 7, and 8. These include: 

 pinelands ( Caribbean Pine) , hammocks 

 (tropical hardwood), thickets (salt- 

 bush), marsh (cat-tail), ponds 

 (lime-sinks and pools) disturbed 

 (canals, abandoned fields, and exo- 

 tics), mangroves, and salt prairies, 

 marshes and transitional habitats 

 (salt flats, ponds, buttonwood 

 transition communities). To avoid 

 repetition, the discussion of these 

 habitats is confined to the distin- 

 guishing characteristics which set 

 the Keys version of these habitats 

 apart from those of the mainland. 



The terrestrial habitat zona- 

 tion on the Florida Keys is compre- 

 hensively addressed by a series of 

 reports by Davis (1940,1942,1943). 

 These reports address: (1) the vege- 

 tation of the Sand Keys or distal 

 islands (Davis 1942); (2) the man- 

 groves of southern Florida (Davis 

 1940); and (3) the vegetation and 

 natural features of southern Florida 

 (Davis 1943). The more recent of 

 these studies named eleven vegeta- 

 tive associes and associations from 

 the Keys. With the exception of the 

 beach/dune strand these associations 

 fall under those habitats previously 

 discussed (i.e., pineland, ham- 

 mocks). More recently Browder et 

 al. (1973) and CZM (1974) incorpo- 

 rated aerial photo interpretations 

 into the development of land use/ 



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