Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The Everglades are calm and chaotic, instinctual and adaptive, wild and beautiful, and of course, real. The key word is real since we are reading about the most unreal reality TV show pretending to portray nature.
When Derek and Mickey get into an argument over whether to move Alice to another location to shoot, we learn that "Years earlier, Wahoo's father had constructed a small but convincing Everglades set at one end of the property. There was a lush pool ten feet deep, complete with pickerelweed and water lilies, for staging underwater scenes" (4.51). Even though it looks real on camera, this Everglades area most certainly is not real. It represents man-made nature.