Wading Through Research

Well! Round 1 is over, and we had some upsets, a couple of blow-outs, and quite a few expected wins. Apparently, primary producers are rather dependable: nothing all that exciting going on in that group. But some things of note elsewhere. Exactly what happened. As few would have denied (except for me. Too much CERP sampling has biased me towards the little man), the alligator trounced the marsh killifish; the panther consumed the woodrat; sawgrass dominated love vine; and the mosquito swarmed the deer fly. The lobate lac scale was absolutely embarrassed by the Mayan cichlid (West Virginia/Kentucky style). BUT we also had some surprise victories: the largemouth bass was fish food for the ibis (some UM fans voting?! And not enough Rehage labbers!), the upside-down jellyfish out-charisma-ed the apple snail, the green iguana mangled the Melaleuca (apparently there's still some bitterness towards Melaleuca out there), and it took a come-from-behind victory for the crocodile to dig...

I hope all your brackets are ready because it's game time for the Round of 64! If you're running a bit behind and need some input on how to fill out your bracket: basically, just choose whichever organism you think has a greater effect on the Everglades in the head-to-head matchups. Once you determine who wins the first two matches, you'll then choose which organism out of those two teams wins in the next round, etc. You can determine winners based on a cost-benefit analysis that isn't necessarily limited by the two organisms' real-life interactions... or you can be more partial and pick your favorite.

With the NCAA basketball tournament and "bracketology" in full swing, I figured we should see how the Everglades would match up in a tournament of champions: MarSh Madness! I admit that this is inspired by the brilliant Mammal March Madness , and it in no way compares to the breadth and depth with which those folks are simulating a mammal combat competition of probabilities! But let's just throw out a bracket of our favorite Everglades inhabitants.

The end of low-mosquito camping season is nigh, and that's got me thinking about campfires and - a natural progression - campfire songs . And what better songs to sing in the Everglades than songs about the Everglades? In this series of posts I'll introduce you to some of my favorites, starting with: "Everglades" by The Kingston Trio:

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 ."

Watch the process of loading microplates to measure soil microbial  extracellular enzyme potential!! This blog has been brought to you by Shelby Servais, FIU graduate student in The Kominoski Lab .

I admit that I ended that last post a bit unclear. But diatoms, it should be said, aren’t (or, rather, shouldn't be said since I shouldn't use double negatives. Ah, well.).