debor042

by Nick Schulte* I think Fragilaria synegrotesca is a cute diatom. Although long and lanky (nothing wrong with that!), F. synegrotesca has an adorable, sometimes very slight, potbelly (Fig. 1).                    Fig. 1 . a)  Live frustules in a rosette colony ( http://fcelter.fiu.edu/data/database/diatom/index.htm?species=3568 )   b) Fragilaria synegrotesca  in valve view (Schulte 2014). Now, some boring diatomist (e.g., me ) might describe that little bump in the middle right as “a unilaterally expanded, hyaline central margin” and that’s accurate enough. But I also like to think of it as F. synegrotesca ’s belly pooch. It brings to my mind the potbellies of seahorses, pigs, puppies and toddlers, and it seems very boop-able. But let’s move past the physical attributes of this diatom, as the allure of this species is in its “actions”. Fragilaria synegrotesca has so far only been reported from karstic wetlands of t...

by Luca Marazzi* ‘Who’ is it and where does it live? This diatom is monoraphid, that is to say it has a raphe only on one valve, as shown in the figures. Monoraphid species are one of 9 major morphological types of diatoms - the other ones are: centric (like Cyclotella meneghiniana ) , araphid (e.g. Asterionella formosa , which forms star-shaped colonies !), eunotioid (e.g. the beautifully ornamented Eunotia diadema ), symmetrical biraphid (e.g. the slender Navicula lanceolata ), asymmetrical biraphid (e.g. Gomphonema parvulum ), epithemioid (e.g. Rhopalodia gibba , which hosts nitrogen-fixing bacteria as symbionts), nitzschioid (e.g. the organic pollution-loving Nitzschia palea ), and surirelloid (the big Surirella ovalis ) 1 . Like in many other cases, the taxonomy is far from settled though; following recent research, numerous specimens usually named C. placentula should be more accurately named Cocconeis lineata and C. euglypta 2 .             ...

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 ." I think my dad sang "Algy" to me when I was a little tyke, though in my 3-year-old wisdom I must have taken "Algy" as "Algae" and from then on aspired to become a phycologist. Now, some attribute this verse to Ogden Nash, while others chalk it up to Anonymous (that great and varied writer!). And while this verse may be humorous, it's not truly nonsense (though this sentence is). I've seen analysis of Algy and the bear as an allegory for existentialist being (what does it mean "to be"?), while others just say (spoiler alert) that the bear ate Algy. BUT, I think they're all wrong as a result of a translational error where "Algy" should be "Algae" as my 3-year-old self clearly realized. THEREFORE: Looks a little green 'round the edges. ...

  This post was written by guest blogger Alexandra Serna, a post-doctoral researcher in the FIU Freshwater Biogeochemistry Lab ( http://www2.fiu.edu/~fwbgchem/ ) , about some of her work on tree islands and carbon dynamics in the Everglades.  ___________________________________________________________________________ A few weeks ago, I attended the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America Annual Meetings in Tampa, FL. What a huge conference! My colleagues and I presented our most recent data on tree island Carbon (C) dynamics. Tree islands are one of the most prominent landscape features of the Everglades system. Despite their importance, hydrologic modifications to the system have greatly altered the number, size, and distribution of tree islands in the Everglades. The original peat-accreting system stored large quantities of soil C and was a sink for atmospheric CO2. Hydrologic manipulation and wide-spread drainage h...

Mike Bush is a guest blogger and a PhD student in the Trexler aquatic ecology lab at FIU ( http://faculty.fiu.edu/~trexlerj/ ).  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                 Everglades restoration can come in many forms, from ensuring that water heading south through the Everglades Agricultural Area is stripped of excess nutrients before it hits the more natural areas of the Everglades to shuffling around huge amounts of water under Alligator Alley into Fakahatchee Strand. Perhaps no project is as ambitious as the Water Conservation Area 3A Decompartmentalization and Sheetflow Enhancement Project (we just refer to it as “DPM” or “Decomp” for short, thank goodness). DPM is a multifaceted project, with major involvement by the South Florida Water Management District and the US Army Corps of Engineers, that focuses on removing lev...