SFCN Mangrove Marsh Ecotone Monitoring (2013 - Ongoing)

Whelan, Kevin; Shamblin, Brooke

The South Florida/Caribbean Network (SFCN) conducts long-term mangrove-marsh ecotone monitoring as part of the nationwide Inventory and Monitoring Division of the National Park Service. Ecotonal movement of vegetation communities across the landscape is indicative of large-scale processes affecting the park and preserve, and tracking the position of the ecotone can indicate the long-term trajectory of these plant communities. The specific objectives of the mangrove-marsh ecotone monitoring project are to determine the spatial and temporal movement of the mangrove-marsh ecotone at systematically selected segments, and to document the composition of vegetation communities at field verification locations by collecting vegetation data, e.g., composition, percent cover and canopy height of dominant species within herbaceous, shrub, and forest strata, helping determine the composition of vegetation communities on both the “mangrove” and “marsh” sides of the ecotone. Remote sensing approaches are used to delineate the physical location of the ecotone (boundaries) between mangroves and freshwater marsh. Fourteen 3-kilometer (1.9 mile [mi]) segments are systematically placed along the ecotone within the two parks. Aerial imagery is used to digitize the mangrove-marsh ecotone in each segment and must be 1 meter (3.3 feet [ft]) or better resolution and have positional accuracy of ± 3 meters (9.8 feet [ft]) or better. Four ground-truth field point locations (marker points) are established approximately 1 kilometer (0.62 miles [mi]) apart along the ecotone of each segment to provide field-based measurements and ground-truthing of the digitized line. This project is a repository for all datasets, protocols, reports, and other types of publications pertaining to the Mangrove Marsh Ecotone monitoring at Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park.

SFCN Mangrove Marsh Ecotone Monitoring (2013 - Ongoing)

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