CW4 1943

From Environmental Technology

                            CAN THE EVERGLADES SURVIVE??

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A) Water management is the critical issue for the Everglades. May through October rain comes from South Florida from the fresh water supply of the Kissimmee River basin and then in December to April (the dry season) water levels drop.

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B) Marine/Estuarine

   Mangroves
   Coastal Prairie
   Freshwater Marl Prairie
   Freshwater Slough
   Cypress
   Hardwood Hammocks
   Pinelands

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C) American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) It lives live in the water and then during mating season the female nests are made onmounds of high vegetation or raised banks so that the eggs will be above the high water mark. Alligators eat a wide variety of foods including insects, crabs, crayfish, fish, frogs, snails, turtles, snakes, coots, grebes, wading birds, raccoons, otters, deer, and other alligators. Alligators are also known to eat dead animals. Sometimes they eat plants?

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D) A manatee is a gray-brown aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a flat, paddle- shaped tail. They have two flippers with three to four nails on each, and their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout. Manatees can be found in shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals and coastal areas. Manatees are a migratory species. Manatees are completely herbivorous. They eat aquatic plants and can consume 10-15% of their body weight daily in vegetation. They graze for food along water bottoms and on the surface. Well, im not really sure but on a guess i would have to say people or hunting them, they are getting caught up in peoples fishing nets, or the water they are living in is not shallow enough and the shoreling keeps receeding back?

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E) Fire is not the end, but the beginning of new life in the Everglades. Regular fires are needed to guarantee that protection. Without those fires much of the diversity would be lost forever and several species would face extinction. Fire gives plant communities opportunities for removal of decaying vegetation and to allow for growth that did not exist prior to the burn. Nutrients released from the burn along with new growth improves habitat, increasing the variety of food sources and living conditions necessary for wildlife.

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F) Water in South Florida once flowed freely from the Kissimmee River to Lake Okeechobee and southward over low-lying lands to the estuaries of Biscayne Bay, the Ten Thousand Islands, and Florida Bay. This shallow, slow-moving sheet of water covered almost 11,000 square miles, creating a mosaic of ponds, sloughs, sawgrass marshes, hardwood hammock, and forested uplands. For thousands of years this intricate system evolved into a finely balanced ecosystem that formed the biological infrastructure for the southern half of the state.