Wading Through Research

This guest post was written by James Stroud, Ph. D. student in Dr.  K en Feeley's  lab at Florida International University.  He is a regular blogger on the Feeley lab blog  upwithclimate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- South Florida is a wild place for lizards. And at the moment, as the region’s most abundant native lizard, life sucks for the American green anole Anolis carolinensis . In the recent past a wealth of invasions have occurred from exotic Caribbean Anolis leading to the establishment of up to 10 non-native species around the Miami area, annually creeping further outwards towards the Everglades. The effect of congenerics on American green anoles has been well studied; the presence of an ecologically similar competitor – such as the now widespread Cuban brown anole Anolis sagrei (Fig. 2) – has forced them higher up into the trees and off the g...

This guest post was written by Phil Matich, a graduate researcher in Dr. Mike Heithaus' lab at Florida International University.  _________________________________________________________________________   We just got back from an amazing trip in August!   As always, we left early in the morning and were fortunate enough to catch the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower as we drove to the boat ramp.   On our way to the field site we saw the sun rise over the water and the mangroves, and then got right to work catching sharks.   On the first live, we caught two sharks, 79 and 85 cm total length, and surgically implanted the smaller individual with an acoustic transmitter so that we could track its movements.   Surprisingly, the larger shark was an individual we had caught and tagged in July, and is one of the first sharks we’ve recaptured in the last three years!