Research is a primary focus of the Everglades Wetland Research Park. In the future, we expect to have many faculty, postdocs, graduate students, student interns, and staff frequenting the offices and labs of the beautiful new Kapnick Center doing research that is key to the survival of our ecosystems and indeed our planet. Several research projects are already active at the EWRP in 2012 are listed here.

Everglades Restoration

This study, begun with a contract to The Ohio State University from the South Florida Water Management District and now continuing at Florida Gulf Coast University, is focused on estimating the efficacy of different wetland plant communities for reducing phosphorus input into the Florida Everglades. This project is a part of the overall Everglades Restoration where 40,000 acres of wetlands, called Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs), have been created at former sugar farms that had, in turn, replaced wetlands decades ago. It is especially important that we learn if certain types of wetland communities (habitats) are better than others in reducing phosphorus inputs to the Florida Everglades, thus reducing the invasion of plants such as Typha (cattails) from taking over the native Cladium (sawgrass) in the Everglades “river of grass.”
Support: South Florida Water Management District and Everglades Wetland Research Park

Carbon Fluxes in Everglades Wetland Ecosystems

Corkscrew Swamp - considered by some to be one of the world’s most majestic wetlands and now designated as the 30th Ramsar Wetland of International Importance in the USA - was chosen as a convenient site for comparing different wetland ecosystems in the Everglades—sawgrass marshes, bald cypress swamps, pond cypress swamps, and pine flatwoods—for their ability to sequester climate-changing carbon emitted from cars and fossil-fuel power plants into permanent soil storage as well as for their emissions of the greenhouse gas methane. These measurements will ultimately help to estimate the net effect of wetland ecosystems such as those at Corkscrew in the cooling or warming of the planet.
Support: Colombia international graduate student support administered by LASPAU; Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary; and Everglades Wetland Research Park

Methane Emissions from Created Wetlands

 Created wetlands may or may not contribute to climate change because they both sequester carbon but also emit the greenhouse gas methane. Studies of methane emissions begun in 2003 at the Olentangy River Wetland Research Park will continue through 2013, aided by large-scale methane emission estimates from an eddy covariance tower created at this site. A companion flow-through created wetland site in Florida will be chosen to give results a wider latitudinal application.
Support: National Science Foundation

Coastal Mangrove Restoration

Opportunities for establishing a long-term mangrove wetland restoration demonstration project at the Naples Botanical Garden are being investigated (see pages 6 and 7). The wetland site, over 100 acres in size and located on the southern edge of the Garden, is called the Collier Enterprises South Wetlands Preserve. It has already been managed for invasive plant removal and has been planted with some salt marsh species. Already we have installed a water quality monitoring device that sends real-time data back to the Kapnick Center. In collaboration with a Ph.D. graduate student finishing at The Ohio State University, the EWRP is investigating mathematical models and other approaches for estimating the connectivity of the site with Naples Bay. We will also be investigating ways to enhance that tidal exchange which is so essential for a healthy coastal wetland.
Support: Everglades Wetland Research Park; Naples Botanical Garden, and The Ohio State University