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Data release for Predicting the impacts of future sea level rise on specialist snake species in the imperiled pine rockland ecosystem of South Florida

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

Approximately 90% of pine rockland habitat in South Florida and the Florida Keys, USA, has been lost, fragmented, and degraded due to urbanization and other anthropogenic disturbances. Low-lying islands and coastal areas are also becoming increasingly vulnerable to sea-level rise and high tide flooding, which is rapidly increasing in frequency, depth, and extent, putting these areas and the pine rockland habitat they contain at particular risk to these threats. We evaluated changes in habitat under future sea level rise conditions and human development for two species of snakes that are endemic to the pine rocklands, Rim Rock Crowned snake (Tantilla oolitica) and Key Ringneck snake (Diadophis punctatus acrinus), both of which are state-listed endangered species and are under consideration for federal listing. We used recent and historical species records to determine the current extent of available habitat in South Florida. We then predicted: 1) how much (area and percentage) of habitat currently available to these species will be lost due to sea level rise/development, and (2) how does the quality of remaining rockland habitat change in future due to SLR and habitat degradation? We also asked whether threats differ between species and regions. Our results predict that salt water intrusion will negatively affect upland habitat by 2050 with 80% of the existing pine rockland habitat degraded with 42 cm of sea level rise. Moreover, short-term stochastic events, such as storm surge and king tides, will increasingly inundate the root zone of pine and other terrestrial vegetation before complete inundation. Our results further predict that most of the terrestrial habitat used by these species will be underwater by 2080, indicating that sea level rise will likely change current pine rockland habitat into more halophytic habitat (mangrove or salt marsh wetland) in about 50 to 60 years.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/c2512cf2b7b4a817ead26f054765e2bf
Identifier USGS:5de815eae4b02caea0ece35f
Data Last Modified 20220906
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4e61b65e-4eb6-44e8-b17e-99ba2729ac4b
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -81.9141,24.5271,-80.0766,25.8617
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 96570b0c6bbe16526a60ecf09c1423addb5f57ba7b7145545c2d09141dcbe560
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -81.9141, 24.5271, -81.9141, 25.8617, -80.0766, 25.8617, -80.0766, 24.5271, -81.9141, 24.5271}

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