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Regional water planning and the National Estuary ProgramSlovak, Sarah 05 December 2013 (has links)
Water availability, supply, accessibility, and quality issues are becoming urgent issues around the globe. Planning and management of water resources is both complicated and different in every state for every type of water resource. Estuaries are among the most important ecosystems in the world, in terms of their ecological and economic value. The many problems facing estuaries across the nation led to an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect these valuable resources and to characterize their conditions. The National Estuary Program (NEP) was established in 1987, under an amendment to the Clean Water Act to address estuarine issues and planning. Three NEP case studies, Galveston Bay Estuary Program, San Francisco Bay Estuary Program, and Tampa Bay Estuary Program provide insight into the functions, capacities and potential of the NEP. Estuary Programs can be located in a variety of institutional settings, and these case studies evaluate the institutional structure of the individual estuary program in the context of their state political environments. These programs provide interesting management and planning challenges, as estuaries do not conform to exact political jurisdictions, so NEP’s define their management areas according to watershed boundaries and their ecosystems in an effort to provide comprehensive estuarine planning and management. This professional report will evaluate these three case studies to determine the role of the NEP in regional water planning and estuarine management. / text
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The Role Of Disturbance In The Genotypic And Morphological Diversity Of Halodule WrightiiUnknown Date (has links)
Seagrasses are important foundation species in coastal ecosystems. Genetic
diversity of seagrasses can influence a number of ecological factors including, but not
limited to, disturbance resistance and resilience. Seagrasses in the Indian River Lagoon
(IRL), Florida are considered to be highly disturbed due to frequent events, like algal
blooms, that impair water quality, reducing available light for seagrass growth. Halodule
wrightii is a dominant seagrass throughout the IRL, but its genetic diversity has only been
quantified in a few Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay populations and little is known about
its potential ecological consequences. I quantified the genetic variation of H. wrightii
using microsatellite markers in the southern IRL to determine: (i) how disturbance history
influenced genetic diversity, (ii) if morphology of clones was, in part, genetically
controlled and related to disturbance history, and (iii) if genotypes showed phenotypic
plasticity in response to disturbances. In the IRL, H. wrightii populations exhibited moderate genetic diversity that varied with disturbance history. The disturbance history
of a population was classified by the variance in the percent occurrence of H. wrightii
over a 16-year period. Genotypic richness and clonal diversity of H. wrightii increased
with increasing disturbance histories. Other genetic diversity measures (e.g., allelic
richness, observed heterozygosity) did not change with disturbance history. These
findings suggest that impacts to seagrass coverage over time can change the genotypic
composition of populations. When different genotypes of H. wrightii were grown in a
common garden, differences in leaf characteristics among genotypes provided evidence
that morphological trait variation is, in part, explained by genetic variance. The
disturbance history of genotypes did not directly affect morphological traits. However,
significant genotype x site (within disturbance history) interactions found greater
variation in shoot density and below ground traits of H. wrightii genotypes from sites of
intermediate disturbance history. Traits of H. wrightii were shown to be phenotypically
plastic. Significant genotype x environment interactions for shoot density and height
demonstrated that genotypes responded differently by increasing, decreasing, and not
changing sizes in response to light reduction. Genetic diversity of H. wrightii has strong
implications for ecological function in coastal communities. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
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