Disturbances (relatively discrete events in time) create both challenges and opportunities for scientists and resource managers striving to track long-term trends in species populations. Along the coast of Florida, a series of disturbances occurred during the 2000s. For example, one stretch of coast experienced a category 4 hurricane (2004), a severe red tide (2005), a 100-year drought (2007), and a severe cold event (2010). These disturbances raised questions with respect to research and management of Florida’s coastal fisheries. For example, when conducting research to unravel ecological processes, what conditions can be considered “typical” when periods affected by disturbance are so frequent and expected to increase? What management benchmarks are necessary to ensure that fish communities and populations are resilient to both the effects of fishing pressure and periodic disturbances?
Results/Conclusions
Analysis of these events found that the effects of disturbances varied widely by fish community and species, and at different scales both spatial (estuary-specific vs. regional) and temporal (no effects vs. large effects and multiyear recoveries). Despite logistic and analytical challenges, the disturbances provided research opportunities for coastal scientists and managers. From a management perspective, studies addressing freshwater withdrawal from river systems were based on datasets that had very high inflows (hurricane) and low inflows (worst drought on record), which provided for important end points in analyses examining species response to inflow and floodplain inundation. From a research design perspective, the disturbances and their effects on communities tested the ability of established monitoring programs to detect change. From a stock assessment perspective, the disturbances provided for “real-world” sensitivity analyses (e.g., cutting the adult stock or recruitment in half) in population models rather than as hypothetical model runs in virtual space. Overall, a great deal of knowledge regarding the resilience of coastal fish communities and populations was produced in a period of only a decade. These findings are being considered when setting management benchmarks.