American Alligator Ecology and Monitoring for CERP

Many important questions concerning the effects of Everglades restoration on alligator populations remain unanswered such as the impacts of decompartmentalization, the role of alligator holes as aquatic refugia, and the effects of hydrology on population growth and condition. Further, the methods for monitoring and evaluating restoration success are not clear or have not been adapted for use during CERP. Also, we need to continue to update and validate restoration tools such as population models for use in alternative selection, performance measure development, and prediction.

This project will directly address the questions outlined above, develop monitoring methods, and validate restoration tools for use in CERP. All project tasks have been requested by management agencies in South Florida (NPS, USFWS), listed as critical CERP priority research needs (see USGS Ecological Modeling Workshop at sofia.usgs.gov/publications/infosheets/ecoworkshop/ ), and/or highlighted as science objectives for CESI