Wading Through Research

This post was written by Nick Schulte, a Master's student in Evelyn Gaiser's lab at Florida International University. 
So where would you go to study how Everglades algae respond to increased nutrients from sea level rise? The Florida Everglades, right? That’s what I thought. But I went to Iowa.

Flying over the Colombian Andes from Medellin to Nuqui in a small, 20 passenger propeller plane, five scientists peer out the window to look at the bosque (Spanish word for forest) covering the mountains below for as far as they could see. I was one of those scientists. Dotted throughout the forest, I can see indigenous communities thriving in small clearings with smoke billowing from small fire pits. Then, out of nowhere, the mountains drop off, the Pacific Ocean appears, and the plane banks hard to starboard. Finally! My first glimpse and the reason why I was making a trip out to Pacific coast of Colombia: mangroves. My first trip to Colombia and I get to see some of the most pristine mangroves in the world. Why am I so excited about mangroves? There is something about the smell of the swamp, the harsh conditions, the incredible resilience of the trees, and the complex hydrology that draws me in. Mangrove is the general term used for a group of salt-tolerant tropical hardwood trees. …