Wading Through Research

by Nick Schulte* I think Fragilaria synegrotesca is a cute diatom. Although long and lanky (nothing wrong with that!), F. synegrotesca has an adorable, sometimes very slight, potbelly (Fig. 1).                    Fig. 1 . a)  Live frustules in a rosette colony ( http://fcelter.fiu.edu/data/database/diatom/index.htm?species=3568 )   b) Fragilaria synegrotesca  in valve view (Schulte 2014). Now, some boring diatomist (e.g., me ) might describe that little bump in the middle right as “a unilaterally expanded, hyaline central margin” and that’s accurate enough. But I also like to think of it as F. synegrotesca ’s belly pooch. It brings to my mind the potbellies of seahorses, pigs, puppies and toddlers, and it seems very boop-able. But let’s move past the physical attributes of this diatom, as the allure of this species is in its “actions”. Fragilaria synegrotesca has so far only been reporte...

by Luca Marazzi* ‘Who’ is it and where does it live? This diatom is monoraphid, that is to say it has a raphe only on one valve, as shown in the figures. Monoraphid species are one of 9 major morphological types of diatoms - the other ones are: centric (like Cyclotella meneghiniana ) , araphid (e.g. Asterionella formosa , which forms star-shaped colonies !), eunotioid (e.g. the beautifully ornamented Eunotia diadema ), symmetrical biraphid (e.g. the slender Navicula lanceolata ), asymmetrical biraphid (e.g. Gomphonema parvulum ), epithemioid (e.g. Rhopalodia gibba , which hosts nitrogen-fixing bacteria as symbionts), nitzschioid (e.g. the organic pollution-loving Nitzschia palea ), and surirelloid (the big Surirella ovalis ) 1 . Like in many other cases, the taxonomy is far from settled though; following recent research, numerous specimens usually named C. placentula should be more accurately named Cocconeis lineata and C. euglypta 2 .         ...

Polar bear! In the EVERGLADES?!?! So how many of you know the poem "Algy"? " Algy met a bear. The bear met Algy. The bear was bulgy. The bulge was Algy ."

  This post was written by guest blogger Alexandra Serna, a post-doctoral researcher in the FIU Freshwater Biogeochemistry Lab ( http://www2.fiu.edu/~fwbgchem/ ) , about some of her work on tree islands and carbon dynamics in the Everglades.  ___________________________________________________________________________ A few weeks ago, I attended the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings in Tampa, FL. What a huge conference! My colleagues and I presented our most recent data on tree island Carbon (C) dynamics. Tree islands are one of the most prominent landscape features of the Everglades system.

Mike Bush is a guest blogger and a PhD student in the Trexler aquatic ecology lab at FIU ( http://faculty.fiu.edu/~trexlerj/ ).  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                 Everglades restoration can come in many forms, from ensuring that water heading south through the Everglades Agricultural Area is stripped of excess nutrients before it hits the more natural areas of the Everglades to shuffling around huge amounts of water under Alligator Alley into Fakahatchee Strand.

PhD students at FIU are required to teach a lab for two semesters.  So, for the past two semesters I have been a teaching assistant (TA) for   Ecology lab  and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  A typical ecology lab consists of a large majority of pre-professional students (pre -med, -dental, -vet, etc.) who need an upper-level elective.  Translation:  many students are enrolled in Ecology because they have to.  I don't expect my students to change their career paths and become ecologists; I simply want them to understand why ecology is important.   Memorizing terminology and examples, while they have their place, are not as useful in the long-term – it’s the experiences and hands-on activities we remember.    I am an ecologist and all I remember from my undergraduate ecology class is going out to my university’s nature preserve looking at species abundances and distributions.   If a student who is preparing for a career in ...

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.