Panhandle Dune Ecosystem Restoration (PDEP)
The coastal dune ecosystem is an important part of beach habitat that can provide protection from storms and prevent erosion in the Florida panhandle. The highly diverse plant communities found within the dunes help with stabilization as well as supply essential food sources and protection for wildlife, including several threatened and endangered species that utilize the dune habitat for a multitude of reasons including nesting, mating, foraging, and refuge.
Beach mice spend their entire lives in the dune ecosystem creating burrows and dispersing seeds for dune vegetation to grow. With their state and federal listing of either threatened or endangered, it is important to protect this habitat for conservation.
Snowy plovers are a state-threatened species of shorebird and one of many that spend their lives using the beach and dune ecosystem. Dune ecosystems can provide protection to shorebirds and their chicks during washover and storm events while also supporting nearby foraging habitats.
The Gulf Coast Solitary bee is a rare and unique bee only found in a few patches of Coastal Plain honeycomb head along the Gulf Coast. With increasing development and decreasing vegetation diversity, these bees are at risk of extinction.
A healthy dune environment benefits not only wildlife and plants but also humans through protection of coastal development. Well-established dunes act as frontline protection against sea level rise and major storm activity for any infrastructure built along the coast. Since the dune environment is dynamic and ever-changing, it is important to enhance and stabilize this protective barrier.
Project Information
This project is funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund and is a collaboration between Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the University of Florida. The Project Oversight Team includes members of the organizations above as well as FWC's own Project Coordinator and Restoration Coordinator. The team works collaboratively to oversee all management, monitoring, and construction activities of the project.
Florida Fish and Wildlife staff visit a potential project site along with personnel from Florida's Park Service. Photo credit: Samantha Hermann, USFWS
The project’s Restoration Coordinator works with the Project Oversight Team and coastal restoration experts from the University of Florida to identify areas along the panhandle that would benefit from restoration efforts. Potential needs may include increasing plant diversity, fortifying the resilience of the dune system, providing additional wildlife forage, and restoring or enhancing dune habitat connectivity within and between conservation lands.
To ensure a multi-species approach for this project is followed, collaboration with other conservation experts is required throughout the process to confirm the needs of marine turtles, nesting shorebirds, or other critical resources are adequately represented while conducting these dune restoration activities.
Our current sites fall within the six counties along the Florida Panhandle, where PDEP is focused. At these sites, specific restoration plans are created by the restoration coordinator and team for the needs of that one area.
The six counties along the panhandle of Florida that PDEP focuses on (i.e. Escambia County, Santa Rosa County, Okaloosa County, Walton County, Bay County, Gulf County).
Wildlife Monitoring
A Santa Rosa beach mouse caught on a bucket camera for monitoring and research.
Beach mice (Peromyscus polionotus) are monitored for evaluating the effectiveness of dune restoration activities because their population levels can be directly linked to dune health. The mice forage among the vegetation and construct burrows within the dunes. Due to their reliance on dunes and reluctance to cross areas without appropriate vegetation cover, loss of habitat is a primary reason for the imperiled status of most beach mouse subspecies.
Vegetation Monitoring
The University of Florida team completes pre- and post-restoration vegetation monitoring at all project sites. Photo credit: University of Florida IFAS
The University of Florida Team, based at the West Florida Research and Education Center and led by Dr. Debbie Miller and Dr. Mack Thetford, works with the Project Oversight Team and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Restoration Coordinator to provide restoration implementation guidance as well as develop and apply protocols for vegetation monitoring of baseline and post-restoration conditions.
At each site, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Restoration Coordinator collaborates with the University of Florida Team, the landowner or manager, and other subject matter experts to develop a site-specific restoration plan that maximizes ecological benefits. Restoration efforts focus on reintroduction or augmentation plantings of native dune plant species to achieve project objectives and promote natural dune building processes. The project restoration protocols incorporate planting or interplanting multiple species selected to achieve site-specific restoration objectives.
Some sites may become inaccessible for restoration plantings during specific times of the year for a multitude of reasons and need to be avoided. Adaptive management provides the project with a strategic plan to address the uncertainties while also completing project objectives.
Adaptive management is an important component of this project that involves the use of a structured process to address uncertainties that are inherent in the environment and the activities conducted for the project. Expected uncertainties include site access, variable site conditions, program operations, planting success, and unanticipated conditions such as storms. Adaptive management assists in focusing on strategies for revising restoration plans and actions as appropriate when evaluating progress relative to the project objectives.
