This Report details major results supported by the NIGEC Southeastern Regional Office through project #94-97UOF16 at the University of Florida, Conducted in collaboration with Scientists at the University of Edinburgh (U.K), the University of Maryland and the University of Miami between 1994 and 1997. The research focused on the estimation of carbon dioxide, water energy, hydrocarbon and other trace gas fluxes from two contrasting, but very typical, north-central Florida ecosystems, a managed mature pine plantation and a natural cypress wetland (detailed site descriptions are provided in Chapter II).

The research conducted under this project led to an approved new project (#97UOF17), now in its second year and also funded by the NIGEC southeastern Regional Office, that established the pine plantation reported on here-but which has since been clear-cut- as one of the AmeriFlux network sites. A new second site is laso included in the AmeriFlux project, a 10yr-old pine plantation nearby the clear-cut. Therefore, along with results collected under the current project at the mature pine plantation, this provides essentially a chronosequence of typically managed southern pine ecosystems for which measurements of carbon, water and energy fluxes are being, or have been, made. The cypress ecosystem will not be actively used under the AneriFlux project, but it resides on land owned by the University of Florida and its vegetation, tower and boardwalk access, will remain intact and available for use for the foreseeable future.