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Fear of Failure

Do you see the tiny green film at the bottom of the beaker in the picture above?  This extremely small clump of green stuff is a diatom sample weighing less than 20 milligrams that I need to carefully process and guard with my life for carbon isotope analysis. If I lose any of this sample or ruin a procedure, I will likely have to spend several weeks waiting for a new culture to grow and start over again.


Thoughts that have been running through my mind recently include:

• What if I lose any of my sample while transferring it between beakers?
• What if it spills?
• What if a piece of hair lands in it? (note: things like hair and dust can ruin stable isotope samples)
• Despite how many methods papers I read, I still feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. What if I dry the sample too long, or add too much acid or completely miss a secret step that isn't described in any journal articles?
• WHY IS THIS FILTER FALLING APART? WHY? NOOOOO!!!!! 

Failure and data loss can happen at all stages of the scientific process. Maybe a storm destroys your field equipment, maybe someone steals a field instrument to sell it for scrap metal, maybe a boater decides to move that heavy metal box they found that happens to be collecting your data, maybe your computer crashes and you lose months of data analysis... and maybe, just maybe, the worst thing that could possibly happen occurs: you give a horrible thesis or dissertation defense.

Although science (and academia in general) demands perfection, failure does occur. It's likely the reason why journal articles published in 2010 can be about studies conducted in 1998- some sample was lost along the way and work needed to be redone. As scientists, we are expected to quickly move on from mistakes, learn from them, and start over again, whether the starting over sets us back days or years.

For now, I will hold on to these backup "diatom leftovers" that probably aren't usable but give me a false sense of security.

Grad Students, Scientists and Researchers: What is the worst lab mistake or scientific failure you ever made? What was the strangest way you have lost data or ruined samples? How did you get over these mishaps?

Writing for Science Blogs Versus Journal Articles

This guest post was written by Deanna Conners, an environmental scientist and freelance science writer who holds a MS in Environmental Studies and a PhD in Environmental Toxicology. Deanna is a frequent contributor to EarthSky. You can follow Deanna on Twitter  and Google+.

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Image courtesy of Dwayne Bent via Flickr 

I’ve heard many people say that they enjoy science blogging. I agree, it’s fun. I’ve been blogging now for almost two years, mostly about topics in Earth science, and the science I write about never ceases to amaze me.

I’ve never heard any scientist say that they enjoy writing journal articles. For myself, and I imagine for a few others, the joy associated with writing journal articles comes not from the act of writing per se but from seeing good research get published in good journals. The act of writing for journal articles involves a heavy dose of delayed gratification.

Nevertheless, journal articles are the mainstay of scientific progress. Blogs? Well, at this point in time I can’t say what role blogs may play in furthering the scientific profession. I can say that science blogs are becoming much more common, respected and valued communication tools. Also, I can hope that science blogging will inspire and encourage more people to enter into STEM careers.

I was honored to be asked to contribute a guest post to Wading Through Research, the new science blog network created by graduate students working in the Florida Coastal Everglades. Since I was given the freedom to write about whatever I wanted, I thought I would use this opportunity to reflect upon and share some of what I’ve learned about writing for journal articles versus writing for science blogs.

On goals. Obviously, both journal articles and science blogs should strive to convey clear, accurate and compelling scientific information. When writing journal articles, however, one important goal to keep in mind is that the science you are describing needs to be repeatable. Hence, write in the most exquisite detail about your methods. When writing for blogs, readability trumps repeatability. Many readers won’t care how you preserved your phytoplankton or how many fish you sampled. One goal of blogging is to make the science more accessible. So go ahead, lose the methods section (when appropriate) and tell us more about those pesky mosquitoes.

On titles. My well worn copy of “How to write and publish a scientific paper” by Robert Day urges writers to chose their titles carefully. More people will read your title than any other part of your paper (or blog). Day recommends that titles written for journal articles should describe the contents of the paper in as few words as possible. Not too short but not too long either. When writing a title for a journal article, you need to ensure that your colleagues and abstracting services can recognize what your paper is about. I highly recommend Day’s book to all graduate students. When writing a title for a science blog, while it’s also important to give a brief, accurate description of the contents of the blog, you also want the title to be “clickable.” Clickable titles help to drive internet traffic to your blog post. Titles that include words such as Top, Why, How, Will, New, Future, Your, Best, Worst tend to be highly clickable. There are a ton of other tips on how to write good blog titles that you can find online.

On style and format. Science journals have been around for a long time. The first journal devoted exclusively to science, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, was first published in 1665. The prestigious journals Nature and Science were first published in 1869 and 1880, respectively. Overtime, science writing for journal articles evolved into the IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) format, and the writing style has become formal and objective. These conventions have served science very well. They are unlikely to change anytime soon. When writing for science journals, stick to the conventional format and style guidelines, you likely won’t get published if you don’t. Science blogging began in the late 1990s and it is still evolving. Blog formats are diverse and writing styles range from the formal to the informal. The blog aggregating websites “Science Blogging” and “Alltop Science News” are a great way to explore the myriad of different blogging styles that exist. One reason I’m particularly fond of science blogging is that if you think some scientific fact is really cool, you can go ahead and say so.

On illustrations. Much scientific information is best communicated by the use of tables, figures, photographs and other types of graphic illustrations. Unfortunately, the use of graphic illustrations in journal articles is expensive and you are often limited in how many you can use. Not so for blogs. Feel free to illustrate away.

Congratulations to everyone at Wading Through Research for creating a science blog network for graduate students. You’re so ahead of the curve. A+.

What's next?

I'm just going to go ahead and say it: graduate school is great (though The Simpsons disagree). We're given 2-9 years (depending on whether you're a masters or doctoral student and the scope of your research) to live in a cozy academic bubble surrounded by like-minded peers doing research on things we think are interesting and important. We teach, we write, we think, we analyze, and we get to explore new places and meet really smart people. We don't have tons of extra responsibilities like kids (usually) and onerous administrative crap, and we're given some room to fail every once in a while (the most important part of the scientific process). Sure graduate school can be frustrating, annoying, and just plain idiotic at times, but that's pretty much a definition for life. Let's not get bogged down in the mundane. But the question I've been asking myself recently is, what's next?



What comes after graduate school? I'm planning on graduating with my PhD next summer and there are a whole lot of decisions that need to be made and time that needs to be managed efficiently. Here's a brief synopsis of my scientific to-do list for the next nine months: Finish writing my dissertation (5-6 chapters, likely somewhere north of 200 pages when all said and done), try to publish each of those chapters in scientific journals (two down, 3-4 to go), continue networking and building collaborations with other scientists to expand my future research opportunities, and apply for multiple post-doctoral research positions and hope that one comes through.

This last bit represents a very interesting part of the multi-faceted scientific life: we have to always be looking forward and backwards at the same time. For example, I am currently writing two brand spanking new research proposals for two different post-doctoral opportunities while at the same time writing papers based on my alligator research that is already complete. Half my time is spent looking back at the research I've done, trying to make sense of it and fitting it into the current scientific discourse, while the other half of my time is spent trying to get funding to do future research and predict what kinds of scientific questions are going to be important over the next few years. It's not like this is unique to me (all scientists do this) but as a young scientist it's still quite a challenging balancing act.

Also, I have to start thinking about what the "goal" of all this is (as if there is a concrete one out there somewhere). After my post-doc, do I want to try and get a job as a scientist with the state or federal government? What about an environmental NGO? Or a job applying science to public policy? Or a job at a university, and if so, what kind of university? Some of these options require different kinds of post-doc experience, so choosing the "right" post-doc can have big implications for your career path. I've attended lots of job panels at science conferences around the country where scientists from all the different job sectors come together and talk about what their jobs are like, how to get a job in their field, and on and on. The message from each panel has been clear: it is not always easy to switch from one type of scientific career to another once you've started down a certain path, so do the legwork now to set yourself up for the type of career you want. That is, if you know what type of scientific career you want.

Through this whole convoluted process I've found encouragement from some advice given to me by a man I met in Belize many years ago: I was 18 and working on a research project studying manatee ecology and behavior off the coast of Belize City. One day we went out to a coral reef to track manatees and do some spear fishing for our dinner, and while we were swimming around a huge catamaran pulled up near our little boat. I swam over to the boat to see who was on board and was warmly greeted by a wealthy middle-aged California businessman on vacation with his wife. They invited me on board for a little lunch and a Coke and we talked about science and the randomness of meeting people anywhere at anytime. During the conversation he said to me "You want to know the secret to success? To how I got where I am today? It's staying open to possibilities. Never close yourself off to new things and new people, and pursue new opportunities as they come your way. Take risks and see what happens. There are no wrong choices, just different ones." Good advice I think.

  

Rising star in FCE

I would like to introduce you to a new rising star in the FCE, Sara Osorio! She has been working with FCE LTER Education and Outreach coordinator, Mr. Nick Oehm, and our lead PI, Dr. Evelyn Gaiser. Her research project is about the diatoms found in the wetland restoration area of the Deering Estate (Biscayne Coastal Wetlands Project).

Sara Osorio, FCE LTER High School Researcher at the FIU Periphyton Lab

Sara is currently a junior in high school. She became involved in FCE research because she was always fond of her science classes, including AP Biology. Through the recommendations of Mr. Oehm, Sara became one of our newest high school researchers.

Sara is working with Dr. Gaiser in the Periphyton Lab at FIU as a LTER high school research assistant, where she is receiving personal instruction on all the necessary aspects of a real scientific research study: field sampling, laboratory procedures, diatom identification, and microscopy. Later, there will likely be data analysis, poster making, and writing advice, too!

Through collaboration with the Deering Estate, Sara and Dr. Gaiser made a trek through the coastal wetland restoration area to collect periphyton samples across a fresh water to marine water transect. This area used to be the location of a mansion, as well as a Native American burial ground, now being rehabilitated to its natural state. Sara enjoyed the field sampling experience, as she has always loved to be out in nature, even though it required her to get a bit down and dirty (she made sure to wear old jeans that day). One part of the transect was full of hairy, slimey, filamentous algae - but even that could not stop Sara.

Sara sampling hairy, slimey, filamentous algae at the Deering Estate

Sara sampling with Chris Sanchez, FCE and CAP LTER undergraduate researcher

Sara learned how to process these samples in the lab. She remembers how cool it was to see the bubbling and foaming reaction of periphyton when you pour acid on them - a necessary step in cleaning samples for diatom identification.

Currently, Sara is learning to become an expert in microscopy and diatom identification. She says this step has been the most challenging part of her research experience so far because there are so many details on a diatom cell that you need to look at for identification. However, she thinks it is very cool to see things under the microscope that not many people get to see.

Pleurosigma, diatom identified and photographed by Sara

In the future, Sara aspires to continue her studies in biology. She is also keeping her options open for opportunities in the medical field, especially through the military services. Sara expresses her gratitude for the opportunities she has found through FCE, especially the personal guidance by a professor. She is a great example of how future scientists can get an amazing head start through scientific education and outreach programs. Not to mention, the Periphyton Lab is thrilled to have such a bright and motivated student working with us!

Sara sampling coastal periphyton with Dr. Evelyn Gaiser

Graduate students and PIs: There are amazing young scientists like Sara who are willing to work in your lab for free! Be sure to contact Nick Oehm if you are interested in having your own rising star.

High school and undergraduate students: Research experience is rare and looks extremely impressive on any college or graduate school application. Not only do you learn a lot, you also enter into a network consisting of your mentor and their colleagues. Their word of recommendation means a lot! Don't miss these opportunities!

How to Hate Ecology and Still Write a Thesis

During my first year as a graduate student, a week didn't go by where someone didn't ask me "So what's your research question?"  I hated that question more than anything.  I had combed the literature, searching for research ideas, only to discover everything I was interested in had already been done a hundred times over.  All of the mysteries of the environment had been answered and there wasn't anything left to be studied.  "Why am I even here and why are any of us doing science," I frequently asked myself.  "Ecology is stupid.  Ecology is hard.  I hate Ecology!" were also common chants I shouted in my office (and by office, I mean the spare lab next door that was used for storage and sleeping quarters for homeless grad students).  Then, one day, it suddenly all made sense.  I realized I was being punished by my adviser, because he was punished by his adviser, and his adviser's adviser punished him, etc. etc....

Then I stopped blaming the world, sucked it up, and read some more literature.  Every idea I had, I wrote down.  I carried around a notebook to every meeting, every class, and any time something came to me, I wrote it down.  Alot of them were bad, very bad.  But I wrote it down anyway.  It fostered more ideas which led to even better ideas which then led to terrible ideas, and so on and so forth.  I shared them with fellow labmates and post-docs who helped me refine them.  I had meeting after meeting and exchanged numerous emails with my adviser, who dismissed many of my ideas and forced me to use my brain more than I ever had.  Eventually, I figured it out.  Ecology didn't seem so stupid anymore.  It was still hard...very hard.  But it wasn't stupid and I didn't hate it, at least not as much as I once did.  

And so my lesson to you, boys and girls, is that it's o.k. to hate ecology.  Spit on it, kick it, throw it in the trash for a week and ignore it.  It doesn't mind.  It will still be there waiting for you to explore its insides.  Although often times it's hard to see this, there are still plenty of mysteries to be solved.  Heck, you may even find a new species of monkey or discover millions of microscopic marine life.  

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What does it mean to restore the Florida Everglades?

It is complex question, which merits thoughtful engagement with south Florida’s history, familiarity with ecosystem restoration theory and a good dose of visionary thinking. As scholars have demonstrated, ecological restoration is not just a scientific endeavor. Ecological restoration is also a social and political process that poses tough philosophical questions about what people’s proper relationship to nature should be (1). Yet, this question becomes all the more important in the current era of unprecedented environmental change.

A historic postcard. Courtesy of Everglades Digital Library.

If we take the historical view, Everglades restoration is one of many improvement projects that have reshaped south Florida across history. Indeed, the history of south Florida (and the Everglades) is one of transformation. Since the late 1800s, South Florida’s lands and waters have been remade time and time again in the name of progress and improvement. Different actors, ranging from early land barons, state officials and reclamation engineers to contemporary environmentalists and government agencies, have put forward visions of progress and rallied behind improvement projects designed to render this landscape more productive, more profitable, more habitable, more attractive to tourists, and, with Everglades restoration, more ecologically resilient. These visions for improving south Florida have given rise to a succession of environmental conservation and development projects ranging from extensive wetland reclamation to national park creation to widespread suburban development to the inception of one of the world’s largest ecosystem restoration projects. Each of these projects has powerfully restructured the region’s lands and waters, human-environment interactions, and environmental politics.

This map depicts the historic water flow across the Greater Everglades Ecosystem before the Central and Southern Florida Project. Courtesy of US Army Corps of Engineers.

The push for Everglades restoration in the 1970s - or the repair of south Florida’s beleaguered mosaic of wetland habitats - came about in response to the adverse environmental consequences of a previous improvement project: the Central and Southern Florida (CS&F) flood control project. The CS&F project was launched in 1947. A vast armature of infrastructure including 1,000 miles of levees and canals, 15 square miles of interconnected water reservoirs, 150 water control structures and 16 major pumping stations, the CS&F project ushered in an era of unprecedented comprehensive water control in south Florida (2). Designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in response to devastating floodwaters from a powerful 1947 hurricane, the CS&F project enabled widespread agricultural and residential development across the peninsula. While paving the way for South Florida’s rapid modernization, the CS&F project was propelled by the notion that wetlands were worthless and by a vision of progress premised on transforming wetlands into more productive uses through human ingenuity.

This map illustrates how the CS&F project disrupted historic Everglades water flows, and created the current water management system. 

Yet, the CS&F project had deleterious environmental effects. Through the CS&F project, the US Army Corps of Engineers completely re-engineered the Everglades from its historic form as a slow-moving, wide river of water into a fusion of nature, technology and intensive human management (3). In the process, the Corps effectively dismantled the elemental characteristics of the Everglades ecosystem: the seasonal pulse of water from Lake Okeechobee and the wetland’s uninterrupted sheetflow (4). Michael Grunwald has chronicled how the CS&F project did an excellent job draining south Florida and delivering water to agricultural and urban development, but drastically disrupted the quantity, quality and timing of historic water flows across the Greater Everglades ecosystem, especially those into Everglades National Park (5).

In the 1970s, the CS&F project’s adverse consequences became painfully apparent in Everglades National Park. The park landscape was starved of so much water that it almost completely dried out, and intense fires raged across its habitats (6). These events sparked public outcry, and a series of Congressionally mandated projects focused on restoring the hydrology of the Everglades watershed, which culminated with the Congressional authorization of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) in 2000 (7).

An Everglades vista. Courtesy of South Florida Water Management District.

The product of consensus between Florida’s many diverse and often divided water interests, CERP aimed to “get the water right” or restore the quantity, quality, timing and distribution of water flows across the Everglades so that they mimicked historical water conditions as closely as possible. CERP proposed to achieve its goals through a series of 68 projects, including some unproven technologies such as aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) wells (8).

We are now in the twelfth year of CERP, which has undergone several waves of adaptive management, and in the midst of grand rethinking of what it means to steward nature in the 21st century. Traditionally, ecosystem restoration efforts have looked to the past, turning toward a historical baseline condition to which they could return a degraded ecosystem (9). However, in this “post-wild” world – a world where pure “pristine” nature no longer exists because of the far-reaching effects of human influence on Planet Earth – nature appears far more dynamic and anthropogenically produced than we once thought (10). There is greater recognition that humans have significantly shaped the world’s dynamic ecosystems (and not always in negative ways), and that nature’s future is more uncertain than ever with impending climate change. We are entering an era of no-analog or novel ecosystems around the world (11). In the face of such great change and uncertainty, a one size fits all ecosystem restoration approach won’t lead us into a sustainable future. Moreover, these insights prompt us to rethink the role people play in landscapes, including how human practices and knowledges can be used to help repair and strengthen ecological resiliency.

Remnants of a logging tram road in the Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author. 

Everglades restoration began as a government-led improvement project, guided by science and engineering, and aimed at restoring the Everglades to a pre-drainage baseline. As all programs grow and evolve, so too is Everglades restoration. Everglades restoration is moving in important new directions that honor cultural heritage and the contributions local knowledge honed over generations can make to enhancing ecological resiliency. A new model for Everglades restoration is unfolding in the northern Everglades, or the headwaters of the Greater Everglades Ecosystem in the Kissimmee Basin, that relies on public-private partnerships. Spearheaded by The Nature Conservancy, the United States Department of Agriculture, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the Northern Everglades Alliance and other grassroots actors, these efforts work to build partnerships with local ranchers to simultaneously protect the region’s natural values and its rich ranching heritage, all the while ensuring that clean water continues to flow into the Greater Everglades (12). Such collaborative conservation models have proven to be effective and creative solutions for improving environmental health and ecological resiliency in the American West, while bridging polarizing politics and carving out a more empowering place for local land stewardship practices in ecosystem management (13).

    

Prairie/Pine Island Mosaic, Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author.

There is no doubt that the future of the stunning, otherworldly and one-of-kind wetland we call the Everglades – an irreplaceable natural and cultural treasure as well as the source of the majority of south Florida’s drinking water - depends on finding the common ground to build not one but many innovative and inclusive collaborations that constructively bring together multiple voices, knowledge systems and environmental stewardship practices to make the Everglades more resilient in the Anthropocene (14).

Backcountry Camp, Big Cypress National Preserve. Courtesy of author.

Notes

(1)   Helford, Reid. 2000. “Constructing Nature as Constructing Science: Expertise, Activist Science, and Public Conflict in the Chicago Wilderness.” In Restoring Nature: Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities, Paul Gobster and R. Bruce Hull eds., Pp. 119-142. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

        Higgs, Eric. 2003. Nature by Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

        Hull, R. Bruce and David Robertson. 2000. “Conclusion: Which Nature?” InRestoring Nature: Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities, Paul Gobster and R. Bruce Hull eds., Pp. 299-307. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.

        Rikoon, J. Sanford. 2006. Wild Horses and the political ecology of nature restoration in the Missouri Ozarks. Geoforum 37: 200-211.

(2)   U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO). 2007. South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Is Moving Forward but Is Facing Significant Delays, Implementation Challenges, and Rising Costs. Report for House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Washington, DC: GPO. GAO-07-520

(3)   See Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. 1947. The Everglades: River of Grass. 60^thAnniversary edition with update by Michael Grunwald. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 2007.

        Hollander, Gail M. 2008. Raising Cane in the  ’Glades: The Global Sugar Trade and the Transformation of Florida. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

(4)   Blake, Nelson Manfred. 1980. Land into Water - Water into Land: A History of Water Management in Florida. Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida.

(5)   Grunwald, Michael. 2006. The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise. New York: Simon and Schuster.

(6)   Davis, Jack E. 2011. An Everglades Providence: Marjory Stoneman Douglas and the American Environmental Century. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

(7)   Doyle, Mary. 2008.  “The Everglades.” In Large-scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five case studies from the United States, eds. Mary Doyle and Cynthia Drew, 1-2. Washington, DC: Island Press.

        U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO). 2007. South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Is Moving Forward but Is Facing Significant Delays, Implementation Challenges, and Rising Costs. Report for House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Washington, DC: GPO. GAO-07-520

(8)   Salt, Terrence “Rock”, Stuart Langton and Mary Doyle. “The Challenges of Restoring the Everglades Ecosystem.” In Large-scale Ecosystem Restoration: Five case studies from the United States, eds. Mary Doyle and Cynthia Drew, 5-33. Washington, DC: Island Press.

(9)   Higgs, Eric. 2003. Nature by Design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

(10) Marris, Emma. 2011. Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. New York: Bloomsbury.

(11) Hobbs, Richard J., Eric Higgs and James A. Harris. Novel Ecosystems: Implications for Conservation and Restoration. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 24(11): 599-605.

(12) Jenkins, Matt. 2011. The Headwaters: A New Deal Aims to Secure the Sources of the Everglades’ Waters. The Nature Conservancy Magazine 2(June): 44-50. http://magazine.nature.org/features/northern-everglades.xml

(13) Sayre, Nathan F. 2005. Working Wilderness: The Malpai Borderlands Group and the Future of the Western Range. Tucson, AZ: Rio Nuevo Publishers.

(14) See Crutzen, P.J. and E.F. Stoermer. 2000. The Anthropocene. IGBP Newsletter 41(17): 17- 18. Crutzen and Stoermer use the term the “Anthropocene” to demarcate a post-Holocene present and future in which human activity is understood to be the dominant agent of change in the global environment. However, there are alternative perspectives on this sweeping claim. Some scholars challenge it, arguing that it reaffirms the idea that humans are solely despoilers of nature and exert a mastery over the earth. Instead, critics argue there are many different kinds of human-nature interactions – some negative, some positive – and that humans are one of many agents of change. For alternative readings, see Nigel Clark. 2011. Inhuman nature: sociable life on a dynamic planet. Los Angeles: Sage; Bruno Latour. 2004. Politics of Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; T. Morton. 2012. “On Entering the Anthropocene.” A lecture at the Environmental Humanities Symposium, University of New South Wales, August 23, 2012. Available at  http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2012/08/on-entering-anthropocene-mp3.html; and T. Morton. 2010. The Ecological Thought.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

koyabest

koyabest

Everglades Science: By land, by sea, and by air.

The Everglades is our backyard, and that backyard is HUGE!  Fourteen cities of Miami fit in the Everglades. But in exchange for the high-rises, freeways, and spanish-tiled roofs there are tree islands, sloughways, water, pines, mangroves, birds, alligators, fish, spiders, mosquitoes, and plenty of beautiful scenery. The vastness of the Everglades provides prodigious niches of scientific interest to pursue. Some of us study the impacts of the drainage and canal system that line the perimeter or pierce through the Everglades. Other scientists scrutinize the causes of vegetation community structure changes. Some research predator/ prey relationships and others, the animal movement between biomes. Some study the water cycle and the physical and chemical interactions between surface water and groundwater*.  But before we can crunch all the numbers, write all the papers, graduate and go off to save the world, we need to take the measurements, collect the samples, and download the data. Truthfully, it might just be the best part!
*In no way am I limiting the tons of amazing research going on in the Everglades with FCE to this list. You can check out more great glades research here.

As I mentioned earlier, the Everglades is huge and extremely remote. Different forms of transportation are needed to gain access your sites. Depending on your area of scientific interest, you have a few options on how to get there. My study is primarily focused in the coastal mangroves, but I also collect data, maintain autonomous data loggers and help other researchers in other portions of the Everglades. So I am fortunate enough to see many of the different environments. The Everglades has been coined as the "River of Grass" by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, giving you a hint up front that you are going to need at least a boat.

Fig. 1

 

There are days when I need to collect surface water and ground water samples in the southern and southwestern mangroves. For field days up Taylor River, we ride in a 16’ flat-bottom to the FCE sites TS/Ph 6 & 7.  In the early morning we grab the truck, hitch up the boat and drive down to the Key Largo Ranger Station to launch the boat. From there we drive north-northwest across Florida Bay to the mouth of Taylor River. A lovely 30 minute drive on the open water followed by a 25 minute sinuous maze through the tidal creeks. The mangroves at Taylor tend to be very short, growing a little larger around the tidal creeks which are just large enough to drive a skiff through (Fig 1).  Packed away in the boat are water pumps, bottles, sippers, field computers, field probes and the usual set of tools and electrical supplies (Fig. 2). All the necessary items plus a little more, because it is not like you can head to the store real quick to get something you forgot. The samples will later be analyzed for there chemical composition; major ions, nutrients, and isotopes. These analyses help us to understand the how different water sources interact with other water bodies or with the environment around it. More on that topic at a later date. 

Fig. 2

On other days, I need to collect samples up Shark River. The day pretty much starts the same way. Meet early in the morning. Hitch the boat up and head south. But instead of continuing to the Keys, we turn west toward the main Everglades National Park Entrance on our way to Flamingo. This is a long and lonesome 50 minute drive from the entrance to Flamingo, but the bright side is that you get to drive through many of the unique environments in the park; pine rocklands, marl prairies, cypress stands,  ponds and mangroves.  On really good days you can spot some really cool birds (especially in the coming months). 

Fig. 3

Once at Flamingo, we launch the boat and head northwest across Whitewater Bay and the turn northeast up Shark River to sites SRS 4, 5 & 6.  On lucky days you can run into other FCE researchers from FIU, the USGS, or the ENP (Fig. 3). Most days I am the captain of the vessel (requires MOCC training), on other days I get to put my feet up and enjoy the ride (Fig. 4). During the wet season (May-Nov) it is inevitable that you will encounter a thunderstorm or two (Fig. 5). Usually this happens in the early afternoon, once the convection clouds start to form. In the rainy season, you can almost set your clocks to it.

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

Both the Taylor River and Shark River sites are located in brackish water. In the freshwater portion of the Everglades we can use an airboat to get around, even when there is just a few inches water above the surface. We start with another early morning, but this time we hook up the airboat and head west on Tamiami Trail to Frog City. At Frog Chty (authorized access only) we launch the airboat on a beat up boat ramp (Fig, 6). Thank goodness for 4-wheel drive.  

Fig. 6

After putting on lifejackets and ear muffs, we crank the boat up with a thunderous roar from the small aviation engine and head south along the airboat trails (Fig. 7). Once we get to our site, it is time to get wet and muddy (Fig. 8). At our freshwater sites, we download data and maintain our Sontek velocimeters. This instrument uses an acoustic pulse to measure small changes in water flow and helps us to understand how fast and how much water is moving through the Everglades.

Fig. 7

 

Fig. 8

 

The best view of the Everglades comes from the air (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9

In the dry season, the water levels in the glades can drop very low and prevent us from using the airboat. Therefore, we have to take the helicopter. No complaints here. The ride to our sites takes only 15 minutes instead of 60. The perspective from the helicopter helps you to really see the great expanse of the Everglades (Fig. 10).

Fig. 10

The cost of the helicopter is pricey so we take measures to help be as cost-effective as possible. We usually share the ride with another researcher and split up to take care of different tasks simultaneously (Fig. 11). Depending on the water levels we might fly over some fellow researchers (Fig. 12) or depending on our heading we might catch an old plane wreck (Fig. 13).

 

Fig. 11

Fig. 12

 

Fig. 13

 

The "River of Grass" is really an amazing place to see and it is always ` journey to get to our far-away sites. Ultimately, seeking out the scientific mysteries of the swamp.  

 

Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!

Guest post today from a new member of the FCE community!
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Howdy ya’ll! I’m one of the newest members of the Trexler lab, here all the way from Houston, Texas. I finished my Masters in May, which focused on reproductive life histories of small stream fishes. In addition to working in some amazing clear water East Texas streams, I have a love/hate relationship with springs in the beautiful West Texas Chihuahuan desert. But, life hasn’t all been unicorns and butterflies; I’ve worked in my share of dumpy freshwater sites. However, nothing prepared me for what I was to endure in the Everglades. 

Don’t get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting that the Everglades are “dumpy,” but rather mysterious and frankly, comedic. This past summer I was lucky enough to (literally) get my feet wet in the Everglades. I was excited, yet terrified. In Texas, alligators eat people… or so the story goes. I envisioned myself on this amazing airboat ride, only to get my calf taken out by a man-eating reptile. My first trip to the glades was with Mike Bush, who suggested I “shuffle my feet” to avoid gators. Seriously Bush?! I doubt “shuffling my feet” is going to keep a gator from eating me!! Anyway, he may or may not have been right, but I did not encounter nor become the dinner of an alligator. Day two was much more eventful; it was pouring rain and I had no rain gear. We were setting up drift fences made of 32 lbs of rebar (this may be a slight exaggeration) and I somehow managed to step in every chin-deep hole in the Gap (area between Water Conservation Areas 3A and 3B) while carrying these fences. My waders were filled with water/mud, the rain was freezing and I had a soggy pb&j for lunch. If you can believe it, I came back for thirds. 

Setting up drift fences.  Photo courtesy of Eric Fortman.

After a couple of interesting trips, I discovered the beauty and elegance of this system. In particular, Shark River Slough and Taylor Slough were some of the most amazing sites I've seen to date. The sheer size of this ecosystem is astonishing and the more I learn about its flora, fauna and ecology, the more intrigued I become; I have even learned to befriend (but respect) the gators! I am extremely lucky to have the opportunity to work in the country’s most prized restoration project. I guess Marjory Stoneman Douglas had it right- “it reveals its secrets slowly…” After traveling to almost every corner of this amazingly diverse ecosystem, I came to a couple of conclusions: 1) The Everglades are amazing, and 2) The Gap must be part of the ‘Truman Show’ and Mike Bush is the main star. 

Photo courtesy of Eric Fortman.

Jessica Sanchez
Doctoral Student
Florida International University
Department of Biological Sciences
jsanc318@fiu.edu

Why I love alligators

I've always had a passion for animals, particularly large animals of the dangerous variety (big predators), but before I started my PhD I had never really spent much time thinking about alligators. Now, after working with alligators in the coastal Everglades for the past 5 years, they are one of my favorite animals. Let me tell you a few reasons why:

1. Alligators can get really big. The largest alligator officially recorded in Florida from 1977-1993 weighed in at 1041 lbs. Alligators can get so big that they can take down adult deer, like in this picture taken in Georgia by Terri Jenkins, a US Fish and Wildlife Service district fire management officer. The gator in this picture is "only" 12-14 ft. long.

2. Alligators can change their digestion rates. Alligators eat large meals (like whole deer) fairly infrequently, so it's to their advantage to be able to slow down their metabolism when they have nothing in their stomach to save energy. However, when they do eat a large meal, it's to their advantage to digest it quickly so their movement isn't hindered by having lots of meat sitting in their stomach slowing them down. The way that alligators ramp up their digestion is really cool: they have a "shunt" in their heart that they can shut off, forcing carbon dioxide rich blood (which would normally go to the lungs to allow the carbon dioxide to be exhaled) to the stomach, where that carbon dioxide gets turned into gastric acid and helps break food down rapidly.

Alligator heart (Photo credit)

3. Alligators breathe like birds. It's not exactly clear how they do this, but a study showed that alligators breathe unidirectionally, similar to the way birds breathe. Mammals (like us) breathe bi-directionally or "tidally," with air coming in to our lungs, then stopping and being forced out in the opposite direction through the same pathway. Alligators and birds, in contrast, have respiratory systems that allow air to enter their lungs through one pathway but then leave through a different pathway, meaning air always moves in one direction through their respiratory systems. It's thought that this unidirectional system is more efficient at extracting oxygen from the air and shows that alligators and birds are quite closely related.

4. Alligator immune systems are ridiculous. During my field research I've encountered many alligators missing part of their tails or even whole arms or legs, yet most of these individuals seem perfectly healthy. How is it that an alligator that gets in a fight with another alligator, ends up with a gaping wound, and still has to  live in a swamp filled with bacteria, viruses, and parasites doesn't get incredibly sick? It turns out that the alligator immune system is 10 times more effective at killing off bacteria than the human immune system and that alligators can mount immune defenses against 3 times as many strains of bacteria as humans can. Some researchers are currently looking into ways of exploiting these powerful antibacterial properties of alligator immune systems for human benefit.

5. Alligators eat fruit sometimes! Most people think of alligators as strict carnivores, but I've found through stomach contents analysis that alligators in the coastal Everglades eat lots of pond apples (Annona glabra), a less than tasty fruit that most humans don't like. I also worked with some colleagues to research other kinds of fruits that crocodilians have been documented consuming and we found records of 46 different fruits in crocodilian stomachs. We don't know if they eat the fruits intentionally or just because they are curious animals and will put anything in their mouths, but it's an interesting phenomenon none the less.

6. Alligators can move far and fast. Alligators are typically thought of as slow-moving animals that laze around sunning themselves for most of their lives, but my movement studies paint a more nuanced picture. Back in 2007, in collaboration with Frank Mazzotti of the University of Florida, we attached GPS transmitters to two alligators in the Shark River Estuary. Over the next 146 days, one of the alligators moved a total of 801.5 km, an average of 5.5 km per day! Furthermore, the longest distance traveled in one 24 hour period was 22.4 km, and the fastest speed recorded was 2.9 km/hr. However, over 58 days the other alligator only moved 8.7 km total, an average of 0.15 km per day. I guess some alligators really like to explore and see the world, while other alligators like to stay home and watch TV.

An alligator with a GPS transmitter attached to its neck (the white blob with the antenna sticking out).

All of these adaptations put together (plus many others) are the reasons why crocodilians have been so successful over many millions of years. They are incredibly adaptive animals that can live almost anywhere that freshwater exists in the tropics and sub-tropics, they can move long distances to find food and mates and improve their living conditions, they can save energy when food is scarce but take advantage of big meals when they do come around, they almost never get seriously ill, they have efficient respiratory systems, and they can grow very large so that other animals can't hurt them. They are truly amazing creatures and I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to study them.

For further reading, check out:

Farmer C, TJ Uriona, DB Olsen, M Steenblik, K Sanders (2008) The right-to-left shunt of crocodilians serves digestion. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology 81:125-137

Farmer C, K Sanders (2010) Unidirectional airflow in the lungs of alligators. Science 327:338-340

Merchant M, C Roche, RM Elsey, J Prudhomme (2003) Antibacterial properties of serum from the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part B 136:505-513

Woodward A, JH White, SB Linda (1995) Maximum size of the alligator (Alligator mississippiensis). Journal of Herpetology 29:507-513