EDI Staging Environment
Coastal ecosystems like the Florida Everglades provide many benefits and services to society including protection from storms, habitat and food for important fisheries, support of tourism and local economies, filtration of fresh water, and burial and storage of carbon that offsets greenhouse gas emissions. The Florida Coastal Everglades Long Term Ecological Research (FCE LTER) program addresses how and why coastal ecosystems and their services are changing. Like many coastal ecosystems, the Florida Everglades has been threatened by diversion of fresh water to support urban and agricultural expansion. At the same time, sea-level rise has caused saltwater intrusion of coastal ecosystems which stresses freshwater species, causes elevation loss, and contaminates municipal water resources. However, restoration of seasonal pulses of fresh water may counteract these threats. Researchers in the FCE LTER are continuing long-term studies and experiments to understand how changes in freshwater supply, sea-level rise, and disturbances like tropical storms interact to influence ecosystems and their services. The science team is guided by a diversity and inclusion plan to attract diverse scientists at all career stages. The team includes resource managers – who use discoveries and knowledge from the FCE LTER to guide effective freshwater restoration – and an active community of academic and agency scientists, teachers and other educators, graduate, undergraduate, and high school students. The project has a robust education and outreach program that engages the research team with the general public to advance science discoveries and protection of coastal ecosystems.
EDI is a collaboration between the University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Center for Limnology:
