Investigating the effects of hydrological restoration on mammal communities

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Mariaguadalupe Vilchez, Laura Nicholson, Holly K. Ober and Christina Romagosa, Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, Mariaguadalupe Vilchez, Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program Collaborative, Mariaguadalupe Vilchez, ESA SEEDS Program, Elizabeth C. Braun de Torrez, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Gainesville, FL, Raymond R. Carthy, Florida Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, U.S. Geological Survey, Gainesville, FL

Background/Question/Methods
With over 40% of Florida’s wetlands lost to human development, restoration efforts are crucial in protecting these critical ecosystems. It is imperative to understand the effects of hydrological restoration on species diversity of wildlife communities, as diversity is often used as an indicator of restoration status. However, we lack an understanding of how mammal communities respond to large-scale hydrological restoration. This study uses an extensive current hydrologic restoration effort in south Florida, the Picayune Strand Restoration project (a component of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan), to explore this question. In the study, we assessed mammal species diversity using camera traps at 28 randomly distributed sites across a hydrologic restoration gradient of unrestored, partially restored, and restored sites. Five sites within the adjacent Fakahatchee Strand were included to serve as relatively undisturbed reference sites. Landscape characteristics were included to identify potential drivers of habitat use and species diversity. To assess wildlife communities across the gradient, images from each camera trap were processed with an average of 300 nights per restoration category using digiKam software. Data was analyzed through the camtrapR package in R.
Results/Conclusions
To compensate for the variable number of days sampled across camera traps, we calculated the Shannon’s diversity index and alpha diversity based on average rates of detection across all sites and averaged by restoration category. Preliminary results show that restored sites had the highest Shannon’s diversity index and species richness overall, followed by the reference sites, partially restored sites, and lastly, unrestored sites. Following analysis of community assemblages, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) made up the highest percentage of detections. These results emphasize the importance of restoring wetland habitats to promote mammal diversity, and support the role mammal communities may play as indicators of wetland restoration success.