Donald L. DeAngelis Stephanie S. Romanach Kevin J. Suir Joshua L. Bridevaux Phil Darby 2015 <p>Context</p> <p>The Florida Everglades has diminished in size and its existing wetland hydrology has been altered. The endangered snail kite (<i>Rostrhamus sociabilis</i>) has nearly abandoned the Everglades, and its prey, the apple snail (<i>Pomacea paludosa</i>), has declined.</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>We developed a population model (EverSnail) to understand apple snail response to inter- and intra-annual fluctuations in water depths over the Everglades landscape. EverSnail was developed as a tool to understand how apple snails respond to different hydrologic scenarios.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>EverSnail is an age- and size-structured, spatially-explicit landscape model of P. paludosa in the Everglades. Landscape-level inputs are water depth and air temperature. We conducted sensitivity analyses by running EverSnail with &plusmn; 20 % the baseline value of eight parameters.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>EverSnail was sensitive to changes in survival and water depth associated with reproduction. The EverSnail population varied with changes and/or differences in depth generally consistent with empirical data; site-specific comparisons to field data proved less reliable. A simulated 3-year wet period resulted in a shift in apple snail distribution, but little change in total abundance over the landscape. In contrast, a simulated 3-year succession of relatively dry years resulted in overall lower snail abundances.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Comparisons of model output to empirical data indicate the need for more data to better understand, and eventually parameterize, several aspects of snail ecology in support of EverSnail. A primary value of EverSnail is its capacity to describe the relative response of snail abundance to alternative hydrologic scenarios considered for Everglades water management and restoration.</p> application/pdf 10.1007/s10980-015-0205-5 en Springer Netherlands Modeling apple snail population dynamics on the Everglades landscape article