The Everglades is a natural tropical wetland that plays a large role in South Florida’s water shed. It is divided into agricultural and conservation areas that connect Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay by canals, swamps, and rivers. Historically, Lake Okeechobee slowly filtered into Florida Bay through the Everglades, but the addition of man-made canals has changed the hydrodynamics of this important ecosystem. These canals help to tightly regulate water levels in Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades as a means of flood control for residential and agricultural land, and periodically, large volumes of nutrient-rich water are discharged through them. The broader environmental effects of these canals and periodic discharges of water remains poorly understood in terms of how the environmental microbial communities are influenced. In July 2015, a two-year study began to sample six drainage canals and standing water areas located in Broward and Collier counties for the purpose of characterizing the resident microbial communities or microbiomes. These microbiomes function as a way to track the environment’s influence on surrounding ecological, agricultural, and human influences. Surface water was filtered monthly from each site. Microbial DNA was extracted and variable 16S rRNA gene region V4 was sequenced for community analysis.
Results/Conclusions
Analysis is still ongoing, but preliminary results indicate seasonal variation in the composition of resident microbial communities in these drainage canals. High water level, temperature variations, and flood runoff due to excessive rain fall have the largest influence on the seasonal variation in the microbial communities. Additional variation is expected in March 2016 as nutrient rich water from Lake Okeechobee begins to drain into the east Everglades. Sampling efforts will continue during this temporary event to capture and compare its effect on the residential microbial community over the next two years.