Benthic Invertebrate Species Richness & Diversity At
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BBEENNTTHHIICC INVVEERTTEEBBRRAATTEE SPPEECCIIEESSRRIICCHHNNEESSSS && DDIIVVEERRSSIITTYYAATT DIIFFFFEERRENNTTHHAABBIITTAATTSS IINN TTHHEEGGRREEAATEERR CCHHAARRLLOOTTTTEE HAARRBBOORRSSYYSSTTEEMM Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program 1926 Victoria Avenue Fort Myers, Florida 33901 March 2007 Mote Marine Laboratory Technical Report No. 1169 The Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program is a partnership of citizens, elected officials, resource managers and commercial and recreational resource users working to improve the water quality and ecological integrity of the greater Charlotte Harbor watershed. A cooperative decision-making process is used within the program to address diverse resource management concerns in the 4,400 square mile study area. Many of these partners also financially support the Program, which, in turn, affords the Program opportunities to fund projects such as this. The entities that have financially supported the program include the following: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Southwest Florida Water Management District South Florida Water Management District Florida Department of Environmental Protection Florida Coastal Zone Management Program Peace River/Manasota Regional Water Supply Authority Polk, Sarasota, Manatee, Lee, Charlotte, DeSoto and Hardee Counties Cities of Sanibel, Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Punta Gorda, North Port, Venice and Fort Myers Beach and the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This document was prepared with support from the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program with supplemental support from Mote Marine Laboratory. The project was conducted through the Benthic Ecology Program of Mote's Center for Coastal Ecology. Mote staff project participants included: Principal Investigator James K. Culter; Field Biologists and Invertebrate Taxonomists, Jay R. Leverone, Debi Ingrao, Anamari Boyes, Bernadette Hohmann and Lucas Jennings; Data Management, Jay Sprinkel and Janet Gannon; Sediment Analysis, Jon Perry and Ari Nissanka. Comments and suggestions from the of the Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program Technical Advisory Committee members was helpful in formulating the sampling strategy. The author is especially grateful to the staff of the CHNEP, Dr. Lisa Beaver and Catherine Corbett for their patience and assistance with the final report documents including GIS mapping products. The bay scallop Argopecten irradians, highly prized as a delectable seafood item nearly disappeared from the west coast as a result of pollution, habitat alteration and over harvesting. Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted. --Albert Einstein Here the rain is everything. --Marjory S. Douglas CCHHAARRLLOOTTTTEEHHAARBBOORRBBEENNTTHHIIICCHHAABBIIITTAATTSS Description of Products The results of this project are contained on a single compact disk (CD). The report document is presented as an Adobe PDF file titled Charlotte Harbor Benthic Biodiversity Report and is approximately 14 megabytes in size. A supplement to the report which illustrates some of the common benthic macroinfauna is also presented in PDF and is titled Common Macrobenthic Invertebrates of Charlotte Harbor (~42 mb). Both of these documents have hyperlinks to internet sources of additional information. In addition to the report there are four file folders contained on the CD labeled, Data, Images, Maps and SHP files. Data folder Contains the raw data from this study as well as species lists from additional benthic studies conducted in the Myakka and Peace Rivers and invertebrate data for Mullock and Hendry Creeks that were provided by Ford Walton of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Data are formatted in a Microsoft Excel workbook and in Access. Slightly more information is contained in the Excel file as well as graphics. Images folder This file contains 12 folders of images including aerial images, some sample photographs of invertebrates, and pictures of habitats and field sampling efforts. Maps folder This folder contains individual images of maps, most of which were presented in the report. SHP folder This folder contains Geographic Information System (GIS) files necessary to reconstruct most of the mapping products presented in the report. Within the database files there are several tables with a field labeled as NODC. The NODC Code is a phylogenetic numbering system developed by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC).http://www.nodc.noaa.gov. A detailed explanation of the code can be found at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/General/CDR-detdesc/taxonomic- v8.html. In 1996, NODC released the final version (#8) of the NODC Taxonomic Code on CD-ROM. This CD-ROM, now out of date, provided the old NODC codes along with their new ITIS Taxonomic Serial Numbers to facilitate the transition to a new Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). From that point in time the NODC code was frozen, and ITIS assumed responsibility for assigning new TSN codes, and verifying accepted scientific names and synonyms. We have found the code to remain versatile for certain computer applications related to the sorting and analysis of species abundance data. Any use of information of images presented in this document should be cited appropriately. ii CCHHAARRLLOOTTTTEEHHAARBBOORRBBEENNTTHHIIICCHHAABBIIITTAATTSS TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments.... ........................................................................................ i Description of Products...................................................................................... ii Table of Contents.............................................................................................. iii List of Tables..................................................................................................... v List of Figures.................................................................................................... vi Executive Summary............................................................................................ ix Preface............................................................................................................... xiii I. Introduction............................................................................................ 1 NEP Study Area.... ................................................................................ 1 II Project Habitat Definitions..................................................................... 13 Mangrove Habitat................................................................................... 16 Seagrass Habitat - Submerged Macrophytes.......................................... 18 Oysters and Oyster Bar Habitat.............................................................. 29 Salt Marsh............................................................................................... 31 Unvegetated Bottoms.............................................................................. 32 III. Sampling Methods.................................................................................. 33 Sample Collection Gear.......................................................................... 33 Measurement of Physical Parameters..................................................... 36 IV. Laboratory Methods................................................................................ 38 Sorting and Identification of Fauna......................................................... 38 Sediment Processing................................................................................ 40 V. Sampling Locations................................................................................. 42 VI. Results...................................................................................................... 52 Abiotic Field Parameters.......................................................................... 53 Temperature................................................................................. 53 Salinity - Specific Conductance................................................... 54 Dissolved Oxygen........................................................................ 55 pH and Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) ............................ 56 Sediment Parameters.................................................................... 57 Benthic Macroinvertebrates...................................................................... 72 Species Composition..................................................................... 72 Faunal Abundance......................................................................... 87 Species Diversity Metrics.............................................................. 91 Faunal Similarity Analysis............................................................. 92 VII. Discussion and Summary........................................................................... 93 Selected References................................................................................................ 104 On the Web Information Sources........................................................................... 111 iii CCHHAARRLLOOTTTTEEHHAARBBOORRBBEENNTTHHIIICCHHAABBIIITTAATTSS APPENDICES............................................................................................................ 104 APPENDIX A - SAMPLING STATION LOCATIONS Includes locations for samples taken for the data for the supplemental benthic data from other studies................................................................................ 116 APPENDIX