Sawgrass Marsh
|
David Copps
|
The most extensive natural community in the management area is
sawgrass marsh. The dominant species sawgrass, which reaches heights
of 10 feet high or more, thrived in the low-nutrient and fluctuating
water conditions of the historic Everglades. The black peat of
the Everglades valued for agriculture, especially sugar cane,
formed over thousands of years from decaying sawgrass and charcoal
from frequent fires. Today water levels in the marsh are regulated
by water control structures as well as by rainfall and vary from
an average of 2 feet deep at the peak of the wet season in October
to below ground level at the end of the dry season in May. Sawgrass
is important to ground nesting birds such as the American and
least bitterns, which build elevated mound nests out of dead vegetation
and use the thick growth of sawgrass for cover. Elsewhere in south
Florida, the endangered Florida panther sometimes dens in sawgrass
during the dry season (winter and early spring).
Fires every one to five years are typical and result from lightning
in the late spring when the ground surface is dry, although sawgrass
will carry a fire over water. When the peat dries out in extreme
droughts, devastating muck fires may consume the soil and lower
the ground surface converting the sawgrass marsh to a slough.
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