Thanks in part to the important work by environmental groups, like Save the Manatee, these adorable, irreplaceable mammals are thriving in Florida once again. More than 600 manatees — including young mothers and their newborns — migrate to Kings Bay and Crystal River each winter, making our area the largest seasonal refuge for manatees on Florida’s Gulf Coast. But when the manatees arrive here, there’s no food to be found. Not only is Lyngbya smothering the eelgrasses they eat, but its blocking sunlight needed to grow new plants. Without food, manatees are forced to swim out into the much-colder Gulf waters, exposing them to cold stress and disease.
Manatees aren’t the only ones affected by Lyngbya. As Lyngbya mats deplete oxygen levels in the water, they’re causing a chain reaction in the overall ecosystem. Tiny microscopic animals living in the grass begin to die and become less abundant. Small fish, turtles, shrimp, crabs and other critters that eat these microscopic animals begin to disappear. Birds and larger animals that eat these smaller fish and crabs begin to migrate to other habitats. The whole ecosystem is being altered.
“Without oxygen there is no life, without plants there is no oxygen.”
– Candy Murphy, Treasure, Save Crystal River
This ecosystem thrives in harmony when the water is clean and clear. The zooplankton can flourish is eel grass meadows. The food chain grows from the zooplankton and plants. If we want a healthy ecosystem that provides many ecosystem services, it starts with having healthy restored canal bottoms.
In 2017, Save Crystal River commissioned an independent review to determine if our ecosystem statements and the incredible change that we see has scientific basis behind it. The independent review,
Aquatic Faunal Assessment of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation Habitats in the Crystal River Ecosystem Report (2017), proved the restored sites and the unrestored sites formed two significantly different groups. The paper presents that virtually all statistical metrics (species richness, Margalef richness, Shannon diversity, and Simpsons diversity) identified higher macroinvertebrate diversity in restored habitats. In simpler terms, the restored habitats had a higher species richness and diversity than unrestored sites. This means, the restored sites provides an better ecosystem for the food chain than the unrestored sites. The independent review discusses that the restored and unrestored sites were 73.27% different. That is a large difference in the food chain. Think of all the fish that could thrive in the waters with more restored canals. Think of the birds and fishermen who could thrive with the numerous fish of all the canals were clean. Think of all the other parts of the ecosystem that would do so well if their waterways were 73.27% more like the restored areas instead of the
Lyngbya filled waters.
