A series of tidal channels, dubbed transverse glades, formed within valleys in the ridge and served as conduits for freshwater from the Everglades, thereby modulating the estuarine environment of Biscayne Bay.[2] One of these glades enclosed the Miami River, a section of whose course featured a 6-foot-2.5-inch (1.892 m) waterfall and 450-foot-long (140 m) rapids until 1908, when it was progressively bypassed by the Miami Canal and partly dredged.[3][4] Being one of the few areas sited above pre-drainage sea level, the Miami Rock Ridge was heavily exploited for agriculture and real estate.[5][6]
Description
The coastal ridge was traditionally a component of the endangered pine rocklands, which grew upon the length of the ridge.[7] The environmental community consisted of a large and continuous expanse of South Florida slash pines(Pinus elliottii var. densa), which was interspersed by tropical hardwood hammocks.[8] The globally imperiled pine rockland community, which also encompassed the Florida Keys and The Bahamas, supported numerous endemic plant species; 20 percent occur nowhere else in the world.[7] The communities of the Miami Rock Ridge are maintained by wildfires, including natural fires caused by lightning strikes; this affects the vegetation and its associated inhabitants, thus maintaining a diverse ecosystem.[9][10] The substrate—often consisting of marl—and climate also affects the height of vegetation; thus a mature subtropical hammock typically does not exceed 59 feet (18 m) on the Miami Rock Ridge.[11][12] Today the original communities have been largely removed by development, and the remaining pieces of the ecosystems are scattered into tiny fragments in extreme southeast Florida; they now encompass small fractions of their original range.[7]Simpson Park Hammock and Alice Wainwright Park contain small fragments of tropical hardwood hammock.
^ a b c"Pine Rocklands: A Disappearing Habitat". Miami-Dade Department of Environmental Resources Management. Miami-Dade County. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
^Sullivan, Janet (1994). "Kuchler Type: Subtropical Pine Forest". United States Forest Service. Archived from the original on 2010-01-26. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
^U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "Florida Brickell-bush (Brickellia mosieri)" (PDF). Southeast Region. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 12, 2006. Retrieved 2007-06-30.
^Miami-Dade County. "Pine Rocklands: Born From Fire" (PDF). Miami-Dade Department of Environmental Resources Management. Retrieved 2019-06-11.
Meeder, John F. (24 July 2019). "Origin and development of true karst valleys in response to late Holocene sea-level change, the Transverse Glades of southeast Florida, USA". The Depositional Record. 5 (3). International Association of Sedimentologists: 558–577. doi:10.1002/dep2.84 – via Wiley.
Snyder, James R.; Herndon, Alan; Robertson Jr., William B. (1990). "Chapter 8: South Florida Rockland". In Myers, Ronald L.; Ewel, John J. (eds.). Ecosystems of Florida. Orlando: University Press of Central Florida. pp. 230–77. ISBN 0-8130-1022-5 – via Internet Archive.
"The Ecological Communities" (PDF). South Florida Multi-Species Recovery Plan (PDF) (Report). Atlanta: United States Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region. May 18, 1999. pp. 121–89.
Trotta, Lauren B.; Baiser, Benjamin; Possley, Jennifer; Li, Daijang; Lange, James; Martin, Sarah; Sessa, Emily B. (9 October 2018). "Community phylogeny of the globally critically imperiled pine rockland ecosystem". American Journal of Botany. 105 (10). Botanical Society of America: 1735–1747. doi:10.1002/ajb2.1168 – via Wiley.