LTEaRTS at Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 »

Foraging Flexibility of Two Shark Species

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Sharks are top predators in marine ecosystems, so small changes in shark populations can ripple down and affect entire marine communities. Understanding how sharks adapt to ecosystem changes may help scientists predict how other marine life could react to a changing ocean. Researchers from the Florida Coastal Everglades (FCE) LTER investigated how juveniles of two similar… Read more »

Species shrinkage in America’s national suburban ecosystem

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Mown Lawn

Although the modern “American Dream” is no longer defined by white picket fences, this perception of the “ideal” homestead still holds some influence on cultural norms: cookie-cutter houses lining a cul-de-sac, each with a pristinely manicured green lawn. A collaborative study of residential lawns near several LTER sites found that the quest for this suburban… Read more »

Coastal Everglades in the Cold: Mapping Ecological Sensitivity

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How sensitive are coastal ecosystems to sharp changes in temperature? Using a detailed spatial analysis in the Florida Everglades, researchers found that cold snaps reduced ecosystem productivity most dramatically in areas with low water levels that were located away from the coast. With more extreme weather events predicted in the future, knowing the likely effects of low temperature events on subtropical wetlands systems can inform management of these important ecosystems.