CW4 1592

From Environmental Technology

Can the Everglades Survive?

OK

a. Water management is the critical issue for the Everglades. The dry season is from December to April when the water levels gradually drop. The wet season begins in May. The summer landscape is almost completely covered with water while the winter landscape does not have any more than spotted pools of water.

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b. The habitats found in the Everglades include marine/estuary, mangroves, coastal prarie, freshwater marl prarie, freshwater slough, cypress, hardwood hammocks, and pinelands.

OK

c. The alligator is the largest predator in this region. They live in freshwater lakes, rivers, swamps, and sometimes brackish water. They eat a lot of different types of foods including insects, crabs, crayfish, fish, frogs, snails, turtles, snakes, coots, grebes, wading birds, racoons, otters, deer, other alligators, and dead animals.

OK

d. A manatee is a marine mammal that grows to 1,000 pounds and roams the U.S. coastal waters from Louisiana to Virginia. They are adapted to the tropics and in the winter they go to warm waters such as Florida Bay. They eat the abundant sea grasses and aquatic plants of the bay. They eat 10 to 15 percent of their body fat each day. The manatee's problems are human related. The most critical problem for manatees are boating accidents. They are suffering from a destruction of habitat. The establishment of automatic locks on dams which can harm them is another difficulty the manatees are facing.

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e. No, fire is good for the Everglades. It is a part of the cycle there. Fires mark a new beginning. Without the fires, there would not be so much biological diversity and the species could eventually become extinct. Fire helps the plant communites by getting rid of decay and along for new growth. The nutrients that are released from the burn help to improve habitat.

OK

f. The area used to be covered by a shallow sea and sediments of silt and sand and particles of calcium deposited on the bottom gradually cemented into limestone known as the Tamiama Foundation. Other rocks were formed during the Great Ice Age when the Miami Oolite was formed. In the central portions, tiny moss called Bryozoans flourished and when they died their skeletons settled to the bottom and the sediments cemented into rock known as the Miami Bryzoan Limestone. Changed in elevation resulted in changes in vegetation communities.