Wading Through Research

        If you were to name some good things about wetlands, what would you say? Maybe you would mention their role in climate change mitigation -- that they serve as a buffer for sea level rise, and that they have a strong carbon sequestration ability. Or you might talk about their role as habitats for millions of organisms. However, if you needed to name some “bad things” about wetlands… What would you say? Today, let’s get to know the “bad guy” in the Everglades – methane.            Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that is more potent than the better-known gas carbon dioxide (CO2), since it has 25-36 times the global warming potential of CO2. In addition, the atmospheric methane concentration has increased 2.6 times from the preindustrial period. Methane is produced in soil with no oxygen conditions, therefore, since wetlands are commonly inundated with water, they are a perfect ecosystem to produce methane since water prevents...

                 Ever heard of fishing with dynamite? Well, we fish with something that may sound just as crazy but is much less destructive, electricity! Mixing water and electricity sounds like trouble, but it is actually a widely used method to collect and monitor fish communities in freshwater systems around the world. Our boat-mounted electrofishing set up allows the driver to control the output of electrical current to temporarily immobilize the fish and give the netters a chance to scoop them up and place them in a livewell.   Once the transect is completed, each fish is measured, weighted, and released with the exception of non-native species. Our work focuses on how community assemblage and species abundance changes with hydrology at the marsh-mangrove interface of Shark River, or Shark River Estuary (SRE). Shark River Estuary acts as an important dry season refuge for freshwater species driven out of the drying marsh and t...