Abstracts of Technical Presentations Johnson Education Center FAU Harbor Branch, Fort Pierce, Florida February 6, 2014 1 Key Note Address Spatial Heterogeneity: A Driver of Biodiversity in the IRL Robert Virnstein Seagrass Ecosystems Analysts, East Palatka, FL Contact email:
[email protected] The Indian River Lagoon (IRL) is not a uniform bowl of heterogeneous water. Rather, it is closer to the opposite. A couple examples: (a) Fishes in the north are of primarily temperate origin, versus tropical origin in the south. These two areas are 2 degrees of latitude apart and separated by a major biogeographic transition, the Cape. (b) Discharges from Lake Okeechobee have no effect on Banana River or Mosquito Lagoon – with poor flushing and the large spatial separation, these north and south parts of the IRL behave almost as separate, independent systems. Huge variation also occurs on very local scales, even a few meters. Plus, there is a huge diversity of shorelines, sediment types, salinity, water quality, flushing rates, tides, temperature, closeness to inlets, and especially vegetated habitats – mangrove forests, marsh, seagrass, and macroalgae. Diversity, especially habitat diversity, is not adequately measured simply as a list. Even the same habitat type varies by location (meters to hundreds of kilometers), adjacent habitat, and time. Any given square meter is different than every other of the 900 million square meters in the Lagoon, and the same square meter is different from season to season and year to year. 2 Contributed Papers (Oral