Preservation Easier Than Restoration
Published: Saturday, December 22, 2012 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 2:55 a.m.
What does it take to restore a piece of Central Florida's vanishing scrub habitat?
Quite a bit, I learned recently.
Scrub habitat exists on ancient desert islands along Florida's high sand ridges, the highest of which is the Lake Wales Ridge, which stretches from southern Highlands to southern Lake counties.
Restoration is an interesting topic because 85 percent of the original habitat was converted to urban development or agriculture, and opportunities to undo that don't occur often.
The reason anyone wants to do it at all is that the Lake Wales Ridge contains one of the largest concentrations of rare and endangered plant and animal species in the United States.
A restoration site offers another site where these species can thrive.
The site I visited was a former citrus nursery in southern Highlands County.
The project was overseen by Nancy Bissett of The Natives in Davenport.
The company specializes in creating or restoring native landscapes.
One of the big jobs in a project like this is site preparation.
Once the site is cleared, a common problem is invasion by exotic plants, particularly Natal grass, an aggressive species that infests many sites throughout Central Florida, Bissett said.
By aggressive, she said she means a plant whose seeds can germinate in one day and can create a plant that will generate new seeds within six to eight weeks, according to research at the University of Florida.
That meant the site had to be treated with herbicides frequently to make sure Natal grass and other aggressive species didn't become established, because they could crowd out any native plants that are intended to become established as part of the restoration project.
That work took a couple of years.
Once that problem was taken care of, the next step was to reintroduce the native plants, usually by seed at the rate of about 10,000 plants per acre.
The seed is typically hand-collected to ensure quality control, Bissett said.
Bissett said on larger, better-funded projects, such as those that have been completed by phosphate mining companies, the entire upper layer of the soil containing the native seed bank was moved to the restoration site.
This is about more than plants.
A complete ecosystem also includes animals from insects to reptiles and birds, including sand skinks and Florida scrub-jays, two protected species restricted to scrub habitat.
This parcel was a sand skink mitigation site. These small lizards live underground, feasting on ants, termites and other small critters, and were expected to move in from surrounding scrub habitat.
So far, the project site I visited seems to be working, though Bissett said it's a very, very slow process.
The plants that were evident were a mix of fairly common scrub species and some less common species.
For instance, Bissett said they're trying to establish lichens on the site, so they added a bagful of lichens from another site.
Hilary Swain, a scientist who heads nearby Archbold Biological Station, a center for scrub research, compared some of this to the way a chef mixes ingredients.
The site had a pump, which was important because irrigation is necessary to help to establish the plants, but also to prevent wind-blown soil erosion that can reduce seed germination.
The point of this description to me is that it's a demonstration of an important fact: It's a lot easier to preserve intact habitat than to create it from scratch.
That's why the current effort to preserve some of Florida's remaining wild lands is important.
For more information on the effort, go to http://floridawaterlandlegacy.org/.
WILDLIFE VIEWING SIGNS EXPAND
Wildlife viewing is becoming easier in some parts of Florida, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reports.
The improvement comes with the expansion of signs for the Great Florida Birding and Wildlife Trail.
The trail system, which was launched several years ago, was designed to highlight places throughout Florida where residents and visitors can view wildlife.
Although the effort was originally intended to highlight birdwatching opportunities, the new trail guides also include information on other wildlife viewing opportunities, ranging from butterflies to bobcats.
The site also has a Spanish-language page, reflecting Florida's diversity, though the version I saw had some translation errors that need to be fixed.
For the latest version, go to http://floridabirdingtrail.com/index.php.
NEW YEAR'S HIKES
The state park system is scheduling New Year's Day hikes all over Florida.
Locally, hikes are planned at Colt Creek State Park on State Road 471 north of Lakeland and Allen David Broussard Catfish Creek Preserve State Park on Firetower Road off Hatchineha Road near Poinciana.
The hikes will occur from 9 a.m. to noon.
Both offer an opportunity to get outdoors and to experience a piece of native Florida habitat.
Colt Creek State Park is in the Green Swamp, featuring terrain that ranges from cypress swamps to pine forests.
Catfish Creek is at the edge of the Lake Wales Ridge and features uphill treks through oaks and pines along the edge of sandy ridges.
As usual, there also will be a New Year's Day hike at Circle B Bar Reserve near Lakeland. It begins at 9 a.m. from the parking lot.
[ Tom Palmer can be reached at email@example.com or 863-802-7535. Read his blog on the environment at environment.blogs.theledger.com. ]
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.