Preliminary Environmental Assessment of Apalachicola Bay, Florida

Estuaries are an important aquatic ecosystem that provides support for many important ecosystem functions such as biogeochemical cycling, nutrient trophic transfer, water purification, flood mitigation, and biodiversity, as well as providing several essential resources (lumber). However, estuaries are among the most threaten ecosystems, subject to anthropogenic stresses. Apalachicola Bay in Florida is a river-dominated estuary that have suffered the effects of dredging, snagging (removing of submerged stumps) and canalization activities which has caused water quality degradation (e.g., changes in salinity) coupled with benthic ecosystem alteration and bank overflow reduction. Thus, the goal of this research is to expand our understanding of estuarine ecosystem health using benthic foraminifera (BF) as a cost-effective ecological bioindicator tool. Benthic foraminifera are bioindicator species that are abundant in estuarine environments and respond to different natural and anthropogenic stressors by undergoing changes in abundance and diversity or by producing deformed tests. Therefore, using BF will enable us to determine the health of an estuary. During this study, water samples were analyzed for pH (7.5-8.2), DO (6.2-10 mg/L), temperature (19.4-22.4 ºC), salinity (0.1-35.7 ppt), TDS (0-35), turbidity (6.5-84.6 nTu), TSS (4.6-87.8 mg/L), POC (22.06-60.47%), and nutrients (Ammonium, Phosphate, and Nitrate). Our preliminary data suggests that the BF assemblage dominated by Ammonia sp. Elphidium sp., and Haynesina sp. is an ecological response to high amounts of NH₄+ (0.97-193.4 uM), and POC (22.06-60.47%) in the water column coupled with relative high amounts of sedimentary TOC (0.25-13.26%).