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Full-Text Articles in Forest Sciences
The Effect Of Disturbance And Freshwater Availability On Lower Florida Keys’ Coastal Forest Dynamics, Danielle E. Ogurcak
The Effect Of Disturbance And Freshwater Availability On Lower Florida Keys’ Coastal Forest Dynamics, Danielle E. Ogurcak
FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Coastal forest retreat in the Florida Keys during the 20th century has been attributed to a combination of sea level rise and hurricane storm surge impacts, but the interactions between these two disturbances leading to forest decline are not well understood. The goal of my research was to assess their effects over a period spanning more than two decades, and to examine the relationships between these press and pulse disturbances and freshwater availability in pine rockland, hardwood hammock, and supratidal scrub communities. Impacts and recovery from two storm surges, Hurricanes Georges (1998) and Wilma (2005), were assessed with satellite-derived …