Rob Bennett: rbennetts@earthlink.net
Matt Cohen: mjaruc@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
Kristina Jackson: turtle@moonmag.com
Neal Parker: neal@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu
Group Link: E-mail
Project Description:
Scales in Ecosystems
Kristina Jackson
November 2, 1997
Self Organization as it applies to our project:
Our group project is referred
to as "Wetlands- Self Organization".
We are using some of the principles of self organization that Garry
Peterson referred to in class and some more specific to wetlands processes
to describe wetlands within the landscape. On a landscape level, we
are
using maps of four different watersheds in north Florida to evaluate
wetland size and placement in the drainage basin and relating it to
area
rain data. The theory behind this is that the size of a wetland is
partial
indicator of it's function; larger wetlands are necessary to deal with
larger volumes of water, whether from larger rain events or proximity
to
the drainage of a watershed. The wetland size distribution is being
looked
at to see if there is a normal spread of different size wetlands or
lumpy
distribution.
Also we are creating a simple
watershed simulation model using some
characteristics of wetland auto-catalysis (here referring to a storage
feeding back to increase it's own inputs.) The model is based on water
flowing across a uniformly sloping landscape and using areas of
accumulation to reinforce themselves and create larger wetlands (there's
more to it than that but we're working out the kinks now.) Some wetlands
naturally reinforce themselves with leaching through soil resulting
in clay
lens accumulation serving to hold water more effectively. Also the
acid
nature of wetlands "leachate" can lead to dissolution holes in Florida's
karst topography creating lower levels in the landscape to store more
water
(or fall through to a sinkhole.) Contradicting these points, highly
productive wetlands can accumulate so much slowly decomposing biomass
that
they lift themselves out of standing water, decreasing their own storage
capacity. But this is a simple model trying to use what we see as driving
forces to predict wetland self organization in a simple landscape.