Stephanie S. Romañach

U. S. Geological Survey · Wetland and Aquatic Research Center -- Fort Lauderdale FL

The Mekong River provides water, food security, and many other valuable benefits to the more than 60 million Southeast Asian residents living within its basin. However, the Mekong River Basin is increasingly stressed by changes in climate, land cover, and infrastructure. These changes can affect water quantity and quality and exacerbate related haz...

Understanding of the Everglades’ ecological vulnerabilities and restoration needs has advanced over the past decade but has not been applied in an integrated manner. To address this need, we developed the Everglades Vulnerability Analysis (EVA), a decision support tool that uses modular Bayesian networks to predict the ecological outcomes of a subs...

The once vast and interconnected Everglades wetland ecosystem in Florida underwent a 50% reduction in area in the 1900s, resulting in a highly compartmentalized and managed system where ecological restoration is ongoing. Everglade snail kites (Rostrhamus sociabilis plumbeus, hereafter snail kites) are federally endangered wetland specialists with a...

Biodiversity conservation under a changing climate is a challenging endeavor. Landscapes are shifting as a result of climate change and sea level rise but plant communities in particular may not keep up with the pace of change. Predictive ecological models can help decision makers understand how species are likely to respond to change and then adju...

Understanding the ecology of endangered taxa and the factors affecting their population growth and decline is imperative for their recovery. In the southeastern USA, the Everglades wetland ecosystem supports a high diversity of species and communities, including many endemic and imperiled taxa, such as the federally endangered Cape Sable seaside sp...

Natural resource management is often challenged with a mismatch between the scale of decision-making and the scale of the biological, ecological, and physical processes that control a system. Bioregional approaches to adaptive management have emerged as an approach to inform natural resource management at ecologically relevant scales and across mul...

For ecosystem models to be applicable outside their context of development, temporal and spatial transferability must be demonstrated. This presents a challenge for modeling intertidal ecosystems where spatiotemporal variation arises at multiple scales. Models specializing in tidal dynamics are generally inhibited from having wider ecological appli...

Given limited funding, natural resources decision making is riddled with tradeoffs, including which species or landscapes to prioritize for management action. Florida’s Everglades wetland is home to numerous indicator species, some of which are endangered. But with a multitude of species comes differing hydrologic requirements to yield appropriate...

This report provides a literature review on the science related to Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima mirabilis) management. This report is also accessible here: https://ecos.fws.gov/ServCat/Reference/Profile/139083

Threatened and endangered species Marl prairie Florida Habitat suitability A B S T R A C T The Florida Everglades is a vast and iconic wetland ecosystem in the southern United States that has undergone dramatic changes from habitat degradation, development encroachment, and water impoundment. Starting in the past few decades, large restoration pro...

The Everglades vulnerability analysis (EVA) is a project led by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the National Park Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to accomplish one of the science goals of Restoration Coordination & Verification (RECOVER), a multiagency group responsible for providing scientific and technical evaluations and...

Restoration of the Florida Everglades, a substantial wetland ecosystem within the United States, is one of the largest ongoing restoration projects in the world. Decision-makers and managers within the Everglades ecosystem rely on ecological models forecasting indicator wildlife response to changes in the management of water flows within the system...

The Everglades wetland was once a river of grass, with water flowing slowly through the sawgrass, southward across the landscape. As developers took hold of south Florida, water was sent away from the heart of the Everglades through canals and levees to protect the former wetland for residential and agricultural development. In the 1990s, planning...

Wetlands have experienced dramatic losses in extent around the world, disrupting ecosystem function, habitat, and biodiversity. In Florida’s Greater Everglades, a massive restoration effort costing billions of dollars and spanning multiple decades is underway. As Everglades restoration is implemented in incremental projects, scientists and planners...

Habitat connectivity is essential for maintaining populations of wildlife species, especially as climate changes. Knowledge about the fate of existing habitat networks in a changing climate and in light of land-use change is critical for determining which types of conservation actions must be taken to maintain those networks. However, information i...

Operational ecological forecasting is an emerging field that leverages ecological models in a new, cross-disciplinary way – using a real-time or nearly real-time climate forecast to project near-term ecosystem states. These applications give decision-makers lead time to anticipate and manage state changes that degrade ecosystem functions or directl...

As most species live in seasonal environments, considering varying conditions is essential to understand species dynamics in both geographic and ecological spaces. Both resident and migratory species need to contend with seasonality and balance settling in favorable areas with tracking favorable environmental conditions during the year. We present...

As urban development continues to encroach into natural systems, these ecosystems experience increasing degradation to their form and function. Losses in biodiversity and ecosystem function are further compounded by changing climatic conditions. The State of Florida is known for its biodiversity but has experienced declines in species populations a...

Wetlands provide numerous ecosystem functions such as water purification, nutrient cycling, and wildlife habitat. Avian populations are indicators of wetland health, and understanding their responses to extreme events can aid in targeting restoration efforts following disturbance. Here, we assessed the habitat selection of six coastal wetland bird...

Context The greater Everglades region in Florida (USA) is an area of wetlands that has been altered and reduced to 50% of its original area and faces multiple threats. Spatial landscape analysis can help guide a large and complex ecosystem restoration process, involving billions of dollars and multiple groups of stakeholders. Objectives To guide E...

http://www.illegalwildlifetrade.net/2019/10/28/targeting-wildlife-crime-interventions-through-geographic-profiling/

Periodicity of fire disturbance is a known driver of ecosystem function and is reported as important in both promoting and maintaining viable breeding habitat for the endangered Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima mirabilis; CSSS). In south Florida, the CSSS serves as a fine‐scale indicator of the marl and mixed‐marl prairie communities...

Sea level rise is a fundamental driver of ecosystem change and has the potential to shift the spatial distributions of habitats more rapidly than species can adapt. Rapid sea level rise and associated saltwater intrusion have negative impacts on coastal environments, including loss of habitat for species such as sea turtles and shorebirds. In Flori...

As most species live in seasonal environments, considering varying conditions is essential to understand species dynamics in both geographic and ecological spaces. Both resident and migratory species need to contend with seasonality, and balance settling in favorable areas with tracking favorable environmental conditions during the year. We present...

Reserve design is a process that can address ecological, social, and political factors to identify parcels of land needed to sustain wildlife populations and other natural resources. Acquisition of parcels for a large terrestrial reserve is difficult because it typically occurs over a long timeframe and thus invokes consideration of future conditio...

Mangrove forests provide critical services around the globe to both human populations and the ecosystems they occupy. However, losses of mangrove habitat of more than 50% have been recorded in some parts of the world, and these losses are largely attributable to human activities. The importance of mangroves and the threats to their persistence have...

Critical evaluation of the adequacy of ecological models is urgently needed to enhance their utility in developing theory and enabling environmental managers and policymakers to make informed decisions. Poorly supported management can have detrimental, costly or irreversible impacts on the environment and society. Here, we examine common issues in...

Poaching can have devastating impacts on animal and plant numbers, and in many countries has reached crisis levels, with illegal hunters employing increasingly sophisticated techniques. Here, we show how geographic profiling – a mathematical technique originally developed in criminology and recently applied to animal foraging and epidemiology – can...

Where do the animals go when the sea rises? Learn the probable futures of Florida panthers and other south Florida wildlife in this 5-page fact sheet. Written by Larry Perez, James I. Watling, David Bucklin, Mathieu Basille, Frank J. Mazzotti, Stephanie Romañach, and Laura Brandt and published by the UF Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservati...

At least one-third of all amphibian species face the threat of extinction, and current amphibian extinction rates are four orders of magnitude greater than background rates. Preventing extirpation often requires both ex situ (i.e., conservation breeding programs) and in situ strategies (i.e., protecting natural habitats). Flatwoods salamanders (Amb...

Climate plays an important role in the distribution of species. A given species may adjust to new conditions in-place, move to new areas with suitable climates, or go extinct. Scientists and conservation practitioners use mathematical models to predict the effects of future climate change on wildlife and plan for a biodiverse future. This 8-page fa...

The endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis) is endemic to south Florida and a key indicator species of marl prairie, a highly diverse freshwater community in the Florida Everglades. Maintenance and creation of suitable habitat is seen as the most important pathway to the persistence of the six existing sparrow subpopu...

Conservation of natural resources can be challenging in a rapidly changing world and require collaborative efforts for success. Conservation planning is the process of deciding how to protect, conserve, and enhance or minimize loss of natural and cultural resources. Establishing conservation targets (also called indicators or endpoints), the measur...

Context The Florida Everglades has diminished in size and its existing wetland hydrology has been altered. The endangered snail kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis) has nearly abandoned the Everglades, and its prey, the apple snail (Pomacea paludosa), has declined. Objective We developed a population model (EverSnail) to understand apple snail response to...

It is uncertain how climate change will impact hydrologic drivers of wildlife population dynamics in freshwater wetlands of the Florida Everglades, or how to accommodate this uncertainty in restoration decisions. Using projections of climate scenarios for the year 2060, we evaluated how several possible futures could affect wildlife populations (wa...

The EverVIEW Data Viewer is a cross-platform desktop application that combines and builds upon multiple open source libraries to help users to explore spatially-explicit gridded data stored in Network Common Data Form (NetCDF). Datasets are displayed across multiple side-by-side geographic or tabular displays, showing colorized overlays on an Earth...

Large-scale ecosystem management involves consideration of many factors for informed decision making. The EverVIEW Data Viewer is a cross-platform desktop decision support tool to help decision makers compare simulation model outputs from competing plans for restoring Florida's Greater Everglades. The integration of NetCDF metadata conventions into...

AimTo assess the usefulness of combining climate predictors with additional types of environmental predictors in species distribution models for range-restricted species, using common correlative species distribution modelling approaches.LocationFlorida, USAMethods We used five different algorithms to create distribution models for 14 vertebrate sp...

Climate change poses new challenges for natural resource managers. Predictive modeling of species-environment relationships using climate envelope models can enhance our understanding of climate change effects on biodiversity, assist in assessment of invasion risk by exotic organisms, and inform life-history understanding of individual species. Whi...

The presence of multiple interacting threats to biodiversity and the increasing rate of species extinction make it critical to prioritize management efforts on species and communities that maximize conservation success. We implemented a multi-step approach that coupled vulnerability assessments evaluating threats to Florida taxa such as climate cha...

Ecological trait data for threatened and endangered subspecies and their closely related non-listed subspecies. Subspecies common name, taxon status (endangered vs. non-endangered), subspecies. (XLSX)

List of criteria in each module for the Standardized Index for Vulnerability and Value Assessment (SIVVA). (DOCX)

Climate envelope models are a potentially important conservation tool, but their ability to accurately forecast species' distributional shifts using independent survey data has not been fully evaluated. We created climate envelope models for 12 species of North American breeding birds previously shown to have experienced poleward range shifts. For...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Figure panels with binary prediction maps indicating areas of suitable (brick red) and unsuitable (dark yellow) climate for 12 species of resident North American breeding birds. Models were calibrated on climate conditions for the 1967–1971 period and projected using climate conditions for 1998–2002. Presences (dark circles) and absences (white cir...

Legislative changes during the 1960s–1970s granted user rights over wildlife to landowners in southern Africa, resulting in a shift from livestock farming to wildlife-based land uses. Few comprehensive assessments of such land uses on private land in southern Africa have been conducted and the associated benefits are not always acknowledged by poli...

Fencing is commonly used as a tool in wildlife management in Africa, particularly in the southern part of the continent. Fencing confers a number of advantages to wildlife managers including: the ability to utilize small habitat fragments and conserve wildlife in otherwise human-dominated landscapes by reducing edge-effects on large mammals; enabli...

High-resolution (downscaled) projections of future climate conditions are critical inputs to a wide variety of ecological and socioeconomic models and are created using numerous different approaches. Here, we conduct a sensitivity analysis of spatial predictions from climate envelope models for threatened and endangered vertebrates in the southeast...

Intensive crocodile monitoring programs conducted during the late 1970s and early 1980s in southern Florida resulted in an optimistic outlook for recovery of the protected species population. However, some areas with suitable crocodile habitat were not investigated, such as Biscayne Bay and the mainland shorelines of Barnes and Card Sounds. The obj...

The movement choices that animals make are influenced by many factors including resource availability, which in turn can affect whether the animals search for resources alone or in groups. Subterranean rodents are ideal for examining movement paths because they create burrows that persist for extended periods and thus serve as records of movement....

The prevalence and impacts of the illegal trade in bushmeat are under appreciated in Southern Africa, despite indications that it constitutes a serious conservation threat in parts of the region. Bushmeat trade has emerged as a severe threat to wildlife conservation and the viability of wildlife-based land uses in Zimbabwe during a period of politi...

Under conditions of political instability and economic decline illegal bushmeat hunting has emerged as a serious conservation threat in Zimbabwe. Following settlement of game ranches by subsistence farming communities, wildlife populations have been eradicated over large areas. In several areas still being managed as game ranches illegal hunting is...

The act of killing predators over livestock predation has been the principal cause of declining predator populations throughout Africa. Finding solutions for the coexistence of people with predators in the Ewaso region is of great importance for the local tourism industry and for the persistence of Kenya’s wildlife outside of protected areas. We re...

WEC282, a 3-page illustrated fact sheet by Laura A. Brandt, Stephanie S. Romañach, and Frank J. Mazzotti, describes a project of the University of Florida, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and National Park Service to develop methods and tools that will allow natural resource managers to examine potential effects of climate c...

Historical distribution of large predators in South AfricaChanges in legislation governing wildlife on private landThe potential for conserving predators on game ranchlandThe conservation of predators on game ranchland in practiceCurrent population status of large predators in South AfricaFactors limiting the conservation status of predators on gam...

Legislative changes during recent decades resulted in a massive shift away from livestock towards game ranching in southern Africa, resulting in significant increases in the abundance and distribution of many wildlife species. However, there are problems associated with game ranching from a conservation perspective, including persecution of predato...

The spread of game ranching in southern Africa provides opportunities for the reestablishment of populations of endangered wild dogs extirpated by livestock ranchers. However, this potential has not been realized, partly because of negative rancher perceptions. Some ranchers believe that wild dogs impart costs by killing wildlife that could be util...