Modeling Seagrasses in the Banana River

Prepared by
Michael Corsello
Abstract

Through the use of models, it has been possible to predict the effects alteration of the

landscape will have on a natural community prior to the implimentaion of these changes,

thereby preventing the destruction of the community modeled. This specific model depicts

the seagrass communities occurring in the Indian River basin and is presently calibrated to

the Banana River in Brevard County, Florida (figure 1). This model will be used for long-

term monitoring and to predict the effects climatic and hydrologic cycle alteration by

development will have on the seagrass beds at Kennedy Space Center, FL.
Purpose

Florida seagrass beds have been recognized as an important habitat which is greatly

imperiled. The primary danger to our seagrass beds today is development and pollution.

The development of areas surrounding estuarine seagrass beds results in alteration of the

hydrologic cycle which in turn, directly impacts the productivity of seagrasses. Further,

pollution of the waters entering these estuarine areas result in sediment and nutrient

loading, elevated turbidity, exagerated salinity and temperature fluctuations and ultimately

the decline of seagrass beds. With this development occurring, monitoring of seagrass

beds becomes imperative.

With the vast pristeen lands and waters within Kennedy Space Center and Merritt

Island National Wildlife Refuge (figure 1), and the relatively low likelihood of household

development, this is a prime area for protection of these natural resources. These areas

serve as breeding grounds for many bird species, recruitment areas for several fish species

and habitat for large numbers of manatees and juveinille sea turtles.

The primary function of monitoring a species is to ascertain over a period of time how

the species reacts to its environment, and from this reaction determine if the species will

remain stable in its environment. This permits the development of hypotheses as to what

management efforts need to be implimented to maintain the habitat integrity for said

species. This has a major drawback however, since monitoring is in-situ and continual, a
decline in the population has to occur before an action can be undertaken to stabilize the

population. This means that the management often comes too late. One way of

determining if a decline is coming in the future is through modeling, or mathematically

representing the habitat parameters which directly affect the productivity of the species in

question.

Models permit the behavior of a seagrass bed to be demonstrated using data collected

during normal long-term monitoring efforts. This is accomplished by diagramming the

observed fluctuations of the seagrass in relation to the fultuating perameters in which the

seagrass grows. Then by altering any one parameter, the change in seagrass populations

in response to this altered parameter can be elucidated, predicting the result of the

proposed change before the development is began, and hence before any actual losses in

the population are incurred.

Background

Seagrasses (heretofore known as suberged aquatic vegetation or SAV) grow in

shallow waters of variable salinity and temperature throughout the world. SAV grows in

beds of varying densities and species composition based on location, water quality, depth

and predator activity. SAV serves: as habitat for hatchling fishes, spawning fishes,

invertebrates and aquatic mammals; as food for many herbivorous aquatic species; and as
a foraging ground for wading birds. This makes SAV beds a critical resource to monitor

and protect.

However, in recent years SAV beds have been on the decline worldwide as a result of

degradation in water quality, habitat loss and direct removal. Habitat loss is the most

obvious and straight forward cause of SAV depletion. It is a direct result of development

of beachfront properties and the maintenance of said lands for sandy beaches, the dredging

of channels in naturally shallow areas, the filling of shallow systems for land reclaimation

for development and the impounding of shallow systems for insect control or habitat

managment for other species. This often results in the conversion of a saline system to a

full fresh system which cannot support seagrasses. The direct removal of SAV is a less

obvious means of depletion and often occurs naturally as a result of grazing by

herbivorous species. It is also facilited (in no small part) by human activities such as

motorboat operation, boat grounding, removal for beaches, removal as food and removal

by commercial fish netting. The last, and most insensible cause of SAV reduction is poor

water quality, which is most visible as turbidity which prevents photosynthesis by means of

hyperattenuation. SAV depletion becomes less apparent in alteration of hydrologic cycles

resulting in exagerated depth fluctuations (altered maximum and minimum depths). The

increased depth of a site can easilty put incident radiation levels well below the light

compensation point for a duration long enough to cause seagrass mortality. Another

major impact, which is nearly invisible is that of salinity regimes. The alteration of salinity

regimes by increasing the sheetflow into a estuarine system from rain events can be

dramatic. Salinity can go from a stable normal value to near zero in a days time from
sheetflow associated with perimeter ditches and stormdrains. This is intolerable to

seagrasses, which often only persist in an environment confined to a range of plus or

minus 10 ppt. Once the range is exceeded, the grasses will die off at alarming rates. If

hyposaline conditions are maintained for an extended period of time, fresh water species

(eg. Typha spp.) will invade and displace the SAV. Once SAV has been excluded,

regrowth can be extremely slow even after envirnmental conditions return to normal.

Methods

Development of this model was accomplished using Stella II, a product of High

Performance Systems. Stella utilizes an intuitive GUI (graphical user interface) to

facilitate understanding of the processes in the development of models. The symbology

used for model expression is standard boxflow diagrams with arrows representing

informational flows, and ‘pipes’ representing flows of ‘substance’. Boxes represent the

state variables and circles represent secondary information states. A simple example of

this symbology is illustrated in Fig. 2.

With Stella II, I was able to develop separate models for each parameter affecting

seagrass growth. These models can then be integrated with the individual effects each

parameter has on grass productivty, which then demonstrates the behavior of the system

naturally. After development of the parameter models however, it became clear that Stella

did not have the capability to handle the number of iterations necessary to predict grass
behavior over multiple years. This means that the model components will be compiled in

C++ to permit the large data sets necessary for this model.

State Variable

Flow Control In Flow Control Out

Flow Parameter

Figure 2

Model Development

Since Kennedy Space Center boasts vast areas of SAV within its aquatic areas,

monitoring has been done for many years to protect this resource. This monitoring has

been conducted for 13 years (since 1983) and was done with the use of 50, 100, 150 and

200 meter transects located throughout the Banana River and Mosquito Lagoon (figure

3). These transects were visited twice a year (summer and winter) and percent cover by

species was measured at 5m intervals using the methodology of Daubenmire. Along with

this data, salinity and temperature were collected at the beginning of the transect and at

the end of the transect following data collection. Also, water quality parameters have

been monitored since 1989, using Hydrolab Datasonde 3’s (figure 4) collecting hourly

readings. The measured parameters include pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, salinity

and temperature.
 Figure 4

The collected data was manipulated to facilitate analysis, and was divided into thirds

for use with the model. This division of data was per transect per year in a random fasion

using a random number generator for data selection to avoid biases. One third of the data

was used for model development, one third was used for validation and one third was used

for both.
 In order to determine which parameters were most important to simulate, a regression

was run against each environmental parameter collected, and the parameters with the

highest r-squared values were modeled (this corresponded well with the parameters

simulated in other models. The parameters determined most relevant to the model were:

1. depth, 2. water temperature, 3. salinity and 4. light extinction (based on Kenworthy and

Haunert 1990). Each parameter was then modeled using available data and validated

against the reserved data set.

Temperature

The first model developed was the temperature model (figure 5), this was

accomplished by calculating monthly means from multiple locations proximate to the

Banana River. The data sets used for this calculation were taken from NASA Technical

Memorandum 103498, NASA Technical Memorandum 107548 and from long-term

hydrolab data. The monthly means were then input as standard values for each month.

To add stochastisity to the model, a random number generator was then combined to the

standard value in the range of plus or minus one stadard deviation. The equation for this

model thus became MTA MMT RN ( MTx , MTx ) , where MTA is the monthly
SD SD

temperature approximation, MMT is the monthly mean temperature and

RN ( MTx , MTx ) is a random number generated in the range of plus to minus one
SD SD

standard deviation MMT. The model was then run at a standard five year duration with a
monthly time step. This run was then replicated twenty times, the values averaged for

each time step then compared to the actual hydrolab data. This resulted in an excellent

regression line fit, with an r-squared value in excess of .9.

Figure 5

Salinity

The model for salinity was developed in much the same manner as the temperature

model, with the mean monthly values used as standards, combined with a random variable

in the range of plus or minus one standard deviation. It was then determined that this

simplistic salinity model did not allow the flexibility to model parameters contributing to

salinity, eg. rainfall, sheetflow and basin volume. The model was then re-developed with

each of these parameters as contributors to the salinity to permit alteration of the primary

factors controlling salinity in the lagoon. This was accomplished by averaging salinity

values from thoughout the year for all stations for all available years. These values were
then back calculated against the estimated mean volume of the lagoon (a static water level

with minimal, wind-driven tides) using the equation SSQ ( BV( i ) / 1000)S x , where BV(i)

is the mean basin volume and S x is the mean salinity across all years. This permitted an

estimation of mean lagoonal salt content SSQ, which was then re-integrated with the

fluctuating lagoon volume. The fluctuation of lagoon volume was estimated to occur as a

function of rainfall and its associated sheetflow (SFA). This required the development of a

rainfall model, which was developed in an identical fashion to the temperature model,

under the equation MRA MMR( t ) RN ( MVV( t ) , MVV( t ) ) where MRA is the monthly

rainfall approximation, MMR(t) is the mean monthly rainfall for month (t) and RN(-

MVV(t),MVV(t)) is a random number between plus or minus one standard deviation

MMR(t). These equations were integrated to form the basin volume approximation

(BVA(t)) model. This model operates under the equation BVA( t ) BV( i ) ( MRA * SFA)

where SFA 2(WSD)( BL BW ) BV( i ) / Dx or the runoff distance multiplied by the

shoreline length plus the lagoon surface area.

The new lagoon volume value (BVA(t)) was then integrated with the salt content value

(SSQ) to elucidate a monthly salinity approximation. This was accomplished through the

equation MSA( t ) ( SSQ / BVA( t ) )1000 RN ( S x , S x ) The output from this model
SD SD

was then regressed against actual values and returned an r-squared value of .5587.

Depth
 The depth consideration in terms of SAV in the Banana River is primarily that of mean

water depth and the propensity of particular species to dominate specific depth ranges. To

aloow flexibility in the model, a mean depth variable will be added to permit the input of a

mean depth for the area to be modeled. This will permit predictions on various spatial

scales within the basin. The purpose behind this design is to give the user the ability to

predict SAV production at a specific site or SAV bed, or to model the untire basin

holistically.

Seagrass Model Integration

After an unsucessful first attempt to integrate these models with static growth

suppression ratios and a Markovian type growth and death parameter for the SAV, it

became painfully obvious that it was necessary to take primary production into account.

After a brief literature search, species tolerance boundaries were established (Czerny and

Dunton 1995, Kenworthy and Haunert 1990, Morris and Tomasko 1993, Philips and

McRoy 1980, Tomasko and Dunton 1995) and equations were discovered (Gates 1980,

Philips and McRoy 1980) and rewritten.

One main resource for the development of this portion of the model came from a

previous model for eelgrass (Zostera marina) production by Kremer and Nixon (1975).

This provided much of the design for the integration of the climatic models. This model
also provided equations for GPP, respiration, NPP, light attenuation and temperature

limitation. In order to use these equations for the species and latitude to be modeled in the

Banana River, it was necessary to alter the parameters and variables of these equations. It

was also necessary to develop other models entirely to consider parameters necessary but

not addressed in the Kremer model.

Solar Angle

The most significant model neede for the GPP portion of the model was solar angle.

This model premitted the approximation of actual water column length that solar

irradience had to traverse to contact SAV, and thereby provides a distance through which

attenuation occurs which is greater than (and proportional to) depth at a given location.

The solar angle model (figure -) was developed using standard solar geometry equations

taken from Veglais (Pascal code c.1995) and Gates (1980), and adapted for Stella II. This

model consists of a latitude and beginning year input, and equations which calculate hour

angle, declination and altitude angle (figure -) for each hour of the beginning year and

subsequent years until reaching a specified end time.