Databits: LTER Site Bytes 2020 Coastal Edition

Each year, the LTER Information Management (IM) committee gathers updates from sites across the network related to IM system and personnel changes over the past year, compiling them into a series of ‘Site Bytes’, or site summaries. This November, the first 2020 Site Bytes that started rolling into the editors’ (virtual) office were all from… Read more »

LTEaRTS at Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE)

Just Below the Surface: 1915 (The Founding of Miami Beach) by Xavier Cortada, 2015

FCE LTEaRTs has an ongoing partnership with artist Xavier Cortada, the Tropical Botanic Artists Collective, and the AIRIE program (Artist in Residence in Everglades). Artists have worked with FCE scientists to produce over 20 exhibits since 2012 and professional development for teachers.

Sea Level Rise Making Things Saltier in the Everglades

For those living in South Florida, sea level rise is a very real problem that’s impacting coastal areas right now, and is expected to worsen over the next decade. While most discussions on sea level rise in Florida focus on highly populated coastal cities such as Miami and Tampa, sea level rise is also having… Read more »

2018 NSF LTER Symposium: Understanding Our Ocean Connections

colorful coral reef

The National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network presents an overview of the rich and varied research taking place at its 28 sites. In 2018, the topic of this annual half-day symposium is ocean ecosystems and their connections to marine species and human well-being.

LTER Road trip: Wildlife-Equipment Interactions in the Jungle

The boat whizzed past the mangrove trees in Everglades National Park, creating a blur of blue water and green leaves. Rafael Travieso, our captain and lead technician for Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) LTER, expertly guided us through Shark Slough to a partially hidden wooden dock. Slowing down, we glided forward until the tip of the boat barely tapped the wooden structure, which created a platform for a solar panel and what looks like a barrel.

LTER Road Trip: How Tiny Algae Could Predict Changes in the Everglades

Coastal mangroves in Everglades National park

Viviana Mazzei studies organisms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. When I toured the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER research sites in Everglades National Park, my eyes were drawn to the mangrove trees, the dolphins, the birds. But when Mazzei, a Ph.D. student at Florida International University, wades through these ecosystems, she is on the look-out for something much smaller: diatoms, a type of single-cell algae, that thrive in this aquatic environment.

LTER Road Trip: Exploring the Everglades

When most people think of the Florida Everglades, they picture alligators hiding amongst labyrinths of marsh grass, the famous boardwalks of the Anhinga Trail, or the tightly clustered mangrove trees that border both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Yet, few are aware that Everglades National Park also hosts critically important ecological research sites, where scientists from the Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) station learn about the inner workings of this incredible ecosystem, as well as how it’s responding to human activities.

Rethinking Everglades restoration through synthesis science

Within the science and natural resource management fields, people often say what gets measured gets managed. But in a well studied ecosystem such as the Everglades, how do decades of scientific information get accurately translated into restoration plans? Through the use of synthesis science, researchers from the Florida Coastal Everglades LTER site compiled interdisciplinary data to evaluate… Read more »