| Radio programs for the week of 27 December 1999 (fe91227 - fe91231) | For more
information: PMC's Florida Bay & Adjacent Marine Systems Science Program South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Prediction and Modeling Nat'l Marine Fisheries Service -- Southeast Fisheries Science Center |
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 fe91228Hurricane help for Florida Bay. I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. Scientists concerned about years of decline in Florida Bay, south of the Everglades, have noted a dramatic improvement as tropical weather has cleaned out dead seagrasses and increased the freshwater flow from the everglades. Peter Ortner heads up a science program studying the bay...(Peter Ortner, Ph.D., Program manager for NOAA's contribution to the inter-agency science program for Florida Bay)... "It has a substantial amount of fresh water coming in along one perimeter and then there's kind of a gradient going out toward marine conditions all the way out as it's diluted by seawater. And that's there, pretty much year round because of the tremendous amount of water held up in the big sponge that is south Florida." Part of what makes the bay so important, is its function as an estuarine breeding ground... "Estuaries are among the most productive parts of the marine ecosystem. They're larval fish nurseries, they support enormous amounts of invertebrates." And with the tropical systems of the past couple of years, there's more fresh water in the system... "It's much closer to being the kind of estuary it was before the high point of man's management activities in the late 80s early 90s, which coincided with a period of drought." For more information, visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
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fe91229 Marine life and the rebirth of Florida Bay I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. Florida Bay -- the 850-square mile network of shallow basins directly south of the Florida peninsula -- is, for the first time in more than ten years, doing better. Seagrasses is spreading and there's more freshwater in the system, which Joan Browder of the National Marine Fisheries Service says is good news for marine life... "The combination of seagrasses and salinity... and presumably food availability. That would be primarily benthic food -- little critters in the sea grasses." The health of Florida Bay is important to pink shrimp, one of the state's largest marine harvests... "Right now, it's second only to spiny lobster. And it sometimes exceeds spiny lobster." But a healthy Florida Bay acts as a virtual nursery for Florida marine life... "Pink shrimp, other species -- smaller species of shrimp, many species of mollusks -- mainly small mollusks, many types of fish -- including a rare seahorse, and many gamefish: tarpon, snook, spotted sea trout, grey snapper, red drum, bonefish..." For more information, visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
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| fe91230 Is Florida Bay healthy for the long term? I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. Increased tropical storm activity has improved the health of Florida Bay -- clearing out the mud and dead grasses that have been choking the area for more than a decade. And while the desired seagrasses are spreading again, scientists like Mike Durako will continue their watch... "There's been a hypothesis that one of the positive effects of tropical storms in a shallow bay is to flush the system out, to flush out the detritus or the buildup of dead blade material. And we certainly saw that with (storm) Georges." While the freshwater from recent rainy seasons has helped the Bay's condition, the wind and waves of tropical storms have had impact too, even helping to move a new seagrass species... "We notice that that species is now in three different basins that it wasn't in before the hurricanes. So the hurricanes might have broken fragments of the plant and basically increased its distribution within the bay." But scientist Peter Ortner says the Bay's continued need for freshwater flows will be a deciding factor "While it did not cause the problems in the bay, it set up a situation leading to them... was hypersalinity and the lack of water going into the bay." For more information, visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
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fe91231 Tough choices for Florida Bay I'm Kevin Pierce with the Florida Environment. While the condition of Florida Bay has recently improved, it's future is uncertain. A tremendous addition of freshwater from recent rainy seasons and tropical storms has invigorated the 850-square mile area. But biologist Mike Durako, who has studied the bay for years, says questions remain... "The concern is if we go back into a drought condition where it becomes marinized or lagoonized or you know, high, unstable salinities... will the Turtle Grass then dominate the system again and lead to a one-species, unstable condition." Scientist Peter Ortner says research efforts -- by themselves -- aren't enough... "As a scientist, we'll all say we need to know more and more and more to totally understand everything. But we know enough to know that there are tough, political choices that have to be made. And for people to do that, they should be informed... they have to understand what's important to them." He says the state's next drought will prompt some difficult decisions... "...choices between some human preferences and the ecosystem's health. Or even between different ecosystems, where you want to send the water." For more information, visit floridaenvironment.com. With help from its Environmental Studies Program, we're produced at the Whitaker Center at Florida Gulf Coast University, and funded by the Southwest Florida Council for Environment Education. |
