Cooperative Ecological Studies at the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge: An Academic/Government Partnership for Linking Science, Management, and Education.
Laura A. Brandt and Mark J. Musaus
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Boynton Beach, FL
G. Ronnie Best, H. Franklin Percival, and Kenneth G. Rice
U.S. Geological Survey, Miami, Gainesville, and Davie, FL
Frank J. Mazzotti
University of Florida, Davie, FL
The Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge (Loxahatchee) is 59,646 ha of northern Everglades habitats. It includes the 58,176 ha Water Conservation Area 1, 649 ha of the Strazzulla marsh, a 162 ha cypress swamp, and 821 ha of freshwater marsh impoundments. The refuge is an important part of the Everglades system and provides habitat for over 700 vertebrate species, 63 of which are considered as imperiled, and an unknown number of plant and invertebrate species. The vision for Loxahatchee is to “To serve as an outstanding showcase for ecosystem management that restores, protects and enhances a portion of the unique northern Everglades biological community…”
The refuge faces three major challenges to fulfilling this vision: water quality, water quantity, and exotics. Successful management of the refuge requires an applied science framework that addresses maintenance and restoration of the habitats and wildlife in the face of these challenges.
Key features of this framework are identification of management issues and the articulation of these management issues into specific scientific questions and testable hypotheses. Often a management issue cannot be addressed through a single study, but requires integration of many pieces of information. Therefore, any individual research study may appear irrelevant to a manager, because the linkage to the management issue is not clear. Establishing these linkages prior to the initiation of a study is critical to ensuring it’s relevance to management.
At Loxahatchee we are taking a cooperative approach to both identifying and addressing management related science needs in an effort to ensure the science to support management is available. Refuge staff are developing an inventory, monitoring, and research plan which identifies management issues and specific science questions related to the management issues. The science questions then can be developed into specific management relevant studies by or with the assistance of scientists from USGS, other agencies, and universities.
Over the last four years a combination of strategies have been used to initiate research to address management needs. Strategies include monitoring and research efforts conducted by refuge staff, work conducted through cooperative and grant agreements, the use of interns and graduate students, work conducted on the refuge because the refuge was able to provide logistical support in the form of housing, transportation, or fuel, and work conducted under the issuance of Special Use Permits. The most beneficial of these studies to the refuge have been the ones where there has been clear communication of needs and expectations. Communication of this type takes commitment of time for both the scientists and managers, but is critical for ensuring that projects provide relevant information. We have found that generally, neither scientists nor managers are trained in such types of interactions. Therefore, in addition to continuing to foster partnerships for addressing science needs, we also will be initiating an effort to provide future scientists with the opportunity to develop a better understanding of management needs. Such education and training will ensure that we have a core of people with the experience to facilitate communication between scientists and managers and provide better linkages between science and management.
Laura A., Brandt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, A.R.M. Loxahatchee NWR, 10216 Lee Road, Boynton Beach, FL, 33437, Phone: 561-732-3684, Fax: 561-732-7190, , Ecology and Ecological Modeling