THANK YOU SPONSORS Smithsonian TMON - MarineGEO Partnering Organizations ABSTRACTABSTRACT BOOKBOOK UF/IFAS Off ice of Conferences & Institutes 2311 Mowry Rd, Bldg. 78 An international discussion on the causes and consequences of Gainesville, FL 32611 PO Box 110750 mangrove ecosystem responses to an ever-changing climate. Phone: (352) 392-5930 www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/ July 18-22, 2016 | St. Augustine, FL ABSTRACT BOOK July 18-22, 2016 St. Augustine, FL www.conference.ifas.ufl.edu/mmm4 @mmm4conference #MMM4 Network: FC-Campus Username: [email protected] Password: 16827774 TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome Letter 7 Conference Committees 8 Sponsor Recognition 10 Wednesday Field Trips 11 Keynote Speakers 14 Program Agenda 15 Poster Display Information 22 Directory of Poster Presentations 23 Abstracts 35 Notes 246 July 18 - 22, 2016 | St. Augustine, FL WELCOME MANGROVE ENTHUSIASTS! n behalf of the Organizing Committee, the Scientific Program Committee, and our partners, welcome to the 4th OInternational Mangrove & Macrobenthos Meeting (MMM4). We are pleased you could join us for the first MMM in the United States at Flagler College here in historic downtown St. Augustine, the “Ancient City”, the oldest continuously occupied European-established city in the continental U.S. MMM conferences are a series of international meetings that commenced in 2000 and recur at 4-6 year intervals. They are focused on understanding, conservation, and sustainable use of mangrove ecosystems worldwide. These conferences were initiated to create a greater awareness of the plight of mangroves, which remains one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth. Since its inception, MMM has provided a forum for mangrove scientists, students, resource managers, engineers, and policy-makers from around the world to gather and learn from each other. The first MMM conference, the Meeting on Mangrove Macrobenthos, was initiated in 2000 by the Museum of Zoology of the University of Florence, Italy, and the Macrobenthos of Eastern African Mangroves (MEAM) Group held in Mombasa, Kenya, convened by Marco Vaninni and Stefano Cannici. It focused on the biology, ecology, and exploitation of macrofauna and macrobenthic species in mangrove ecosystems worldwide. Since then, MMM has become recognized as the event to attend if you are involved in mangrove research. In 2006, MMM2 was held in Coolangatta, Australia, hosted by Norm Duke and Joe Lee with the goal to bring mangrove scientists together to address topical issues and to promote mangrove research. The third MMM conference was convened in 2012 by Farid Dahdouh-Guebas in Galle, Sri Lanka. MMM3 expanded on the original MMM scope to include mangrove management as well as mangrove research. Previous conferences in the series have been successful in the pursuit to push the field of mangrove ecology forward on an international level. This year, the momentum continues with a jam-packed program of oral presentations, posters and keynotes addressing today’s hot topics and issues. The Conference Planning and Program Committees worked hard to develop a diverse program that includes a stellar line-up of mangrove scientists, visionaries, and restoration professionals, yielding a full variety of excellent presentations and opportunities to exchange ideas and discuss strategies to address common problems that we all face. St. Augustine provides a perfect location for us to focus on mangrove ecosystems and how they are being affected by climate change. This venue along the Atlantic Coast of Florida was chosen for MMM4 because it represents the transition between temperate and tropical zones, where the pressures of climate change are especially visible. As a result of decreasingly cold winters and sea level rise, the distribution of mangroves is expanding northward and landward along this part of the Florida peninsula into coastal wetlands that have historically been dominated by salt marsh plants. This location, which currently contains the northernmost Atlantic exemplars of all three mangrove species found in North America, provides numerous opportunities to witness the consequences of climate change at this dynamic ecotone. We would like to thank our generous Sponsors listed on page 8, whose financial support is critical to making MMM4 a reality. So please make time to stop by and visit with each of our sponsor representatives at their displays in the Gymnasium. We are also grateful to those who gave of their time and expertise to organize and moderate sessions, and to share their expertise with us. Further, we would be remiss without thanking all of the many individuals recognized on page 6, who volunteered their personal time and energy to organize and plan this conference. Of course, the success of every conference is dependent on those who attend—so thank you for participating in MMM4! Have a great week, enjoy yourself, and when you leave, we trust you will take with you new information, new connections, and new tools and knowledge you can use to advance Mangrove Research in your neck of the woods. Best regards, Candy Feller 7 MMM4 2016 | 4th Mangrove & Macrobenthos Meeting CONFERENCE COMMITTEES PLANNING COMMITTEE Candy Feller, Chair, Senior Scientist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD Nikki Dix, Research Coordinator, GTM Research Reserve, St. Augustine, FL Ken W. Krauss, Research Ecologist, U.S. Geological Survey, National Wetlands Research Center, Lafayette, LA Roy R. “Robin” Lewis III, Wetland Scientist, President, Lewis Environmental Services, Inc. and Coastal Resources Group, Inc., Keys Restoration Fund, Salt Springs, FL Todd Osborne, Assistant Professor, Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Gary Raulerson, Assistant Manager, GTM Research Reserve, St. Augustine, FL Jessica Veenstra, Assistant Professor, Flagler College, St. Augustine, FL SCIENCE PROGRAM COMMITTEE AUSTRALIA Norman C. Duke, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD Joe S.Y. Lee, Griffith University, Gold Coast Southport, QLD Catherine E. Lovelock, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD Todd Minchinton, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW BELGIUM Farid Dahdouh-Guebas, Université Libre de Bruxelles & Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels BRAZIL Yara Schaeffer-Novelli, Oceanographic Institute, University of São Paulo, São Paulo CHINA Luzhen Chen, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian Province COLOMBIA Jose Ernesto Mañcera Pineda, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogata GERMANY Uta Berger, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden 8 July 18 - 22, 2016 | St. Augustine, FL INDONESIA Ben Brown, Mangrove Action Project Indonesia, Indonesia JAMAICA Mona Webber, University of the West Indies, Kingston KENYA Jared O. Bosire, World Wildlife Fund, Kenya Country Office, Mombasa SINGAPORE Daniel A. Friess, National University of Singapore, Singapore SOUTH AFRICA Gonasagren Naidoo, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban UNITED KINGDOM Mark Huxham, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland UNITED STATES Candy Feller, Chair, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD Samantha Chapman, Villanova University, Villanova, PA Donna Devlin, Florida Atlantic University, Fort Pierce, FL Ken W. Krauss, U.S. Geological Survey, Lafayette, LA Roy R. “Robin” Lewis III, Lewis Environmental Services, Inc., Salt Springs, FL Karen McKee, U.S. Geological Survey, Lafayette, LA Todd Osborne, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL Michael J. Osland, U.S. Geological Survey, Lafayette, LA Edward Proffitt, Florida Atlantic University, Fort Pierce, FL Victor H. Rivera-Monroy, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA Thomas J. Smith III, U.S. Geological Survey, St. Petersburg, FL Wayne P. Sousa, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 9 MMM4 2016 | 4th Mangrove & Macrobenthos Meeting A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS Without their generous support, this conference would not be possible. Mangrove Tree Crab (Aratus pisonii) Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) Smithsonian TMON - MarineGEO Coffee Bean Snail (Melampus coffeus) General Contributions Partnering Organizations Smithsonian Environmental Research Center 10 July 18 - 22, 2016 | St. Augustine, FL WEDNESDAY FIELD TRIPS FIELD TRIP #1: MANGROVE AND MARSH RESTORATION TOUR 7:00 - 7:45 AM Coffee Available - Lewis Auditorium (Flagler College) 7:45 AM Board Bus 8:00 AM Bus Departs Over 12,000 ha of mangrove forest and tidal marsh along the central Florida east coast have been successfully restored over the last 40 years. This includes physical removal of dredged material deposits (spoil areas) down to wetland elevations in excavated and filled areas of wetlands for mostly natural recolonization, the reconnection and management of diked mosquito control wetland areas to continue to control mosquitoes while allowing seasonal hydrologic restoration, return of fish use of to these areas, and again natural recolonization by mangroves and marsh plants (see Figures 1 and 2). These programs have emphasized the ability of mangroves and marsh species to undergo natural secondary succession with limited or no planting, a key principal in the Ecological Mangrove Rehabilitation (EMR) program developed over recent decades and summarized in the recently released Ecological Mangrove Rehabilitation Manual (Lewis and Brown 2014). This bus trip will highlight these successfully restored areas, featuring visits to the North Peninsula State Park in Volusia County, Florida and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Titusville.