Quantitative data on the subcanopy vegetation in the study site were not available, so the model was built by adapting information from the Everglades area. The adaptation of Everglades data to forested wetlands was guided by expert opinion (G. Dalrymple, J. Browder, J. Snyder), and personal observations. During the dry season, when the canopy cover is negligible, the importance of primary producers other than cypress, such as periphyton biomass and other subcanopy vegetation, grows considerably. Even during the high water period, dependencies on these items are significant. Aquatic vegetation in considerable quantity can be observed in the middle of domes and strands where many big ponds provide holes in the canopy. We considered these open aquatic zones to be part of our forest wetland model.

Browder, J.A, 1982; Browder, J.A., P.J. Gleason and D.R. Swift,1994.

During the wet season we HP a minimum influence of the canopy and a lower boimass compared to the data collected in the open area of the Everglades (G. Dalrymple, J. Browder, J. Snyder):

Wet season

• Periphyton = 89.91 gC/m²
• Macrophytes = 48.29 gC/m²

Floating vegetation biomass is greater than Macrophytes and the sum of Macrophytes and Floating vegetation is greater than Pepiphyton (G. Dalrymple, J. Browder):

Floating vegetation:

• wet season = 79 gC/m²
• dry season = 80 gC/m²

These are the baseline numbers we used. The values will be slightly different in the balanced network data presented elsewhere.

Browder, J.A, 1982; Browder, J.A., P.J. Gleason and D.R. Swift,1994.

We obtained the flow of carbon to detritus from the mass balance of each compartment. The total amount has been divided between Labile and Refractory detritus as follows. These are the baseline numbers we used. The values will be slightly different in the balanced network data presented elsewhere: