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Queue cliché and sappy background music   Five years of trudging through the mangrove and sawgrass swamps of the Everglades. Five years of collecting water samples, analyzing samples, and presenting the major findings across the country. All of those years, and now finally it comes to fruition…the Dissertation Defense. Yes, I finally made it. As some of you know, there is no clear-cut path (that would be environmentally irresponsible), but instead it can be a long and arduous road. It is on this journey of science that we go from seeing just a tree to seeing the forest. I can’t speak for everyone, but I liken grad school to a roller coaster; the ups the downs, and the exciting twists and turns. And in the end, the ride slows down and then stops to let you out. When you step out, sure you have a cool looking degree, get to wear a fancy gown, and have a prestigious prefix, but its way more than that. You have gone through the gauntlet and survived. Just think back out all the th...

Somewhere down the road ecology evolved from this: To something like this: As a member of the Seagrass Ecosystem Research lab here at Florida International University I am, by default, a researcher in two long-term monitoring projects.  The first is the FCE-LTER seagrass monitoring project and the other is a seagrass monitoring project in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary .  Both datasets have resulted in mounds and mounds of data throughout the years.  As a side project to my dissertation I arrogantly decided to conquer said data mounds and turn out some ground-breaking revelations about benthic community structure in South Florida.  There's just one problem:  I am buried in MOUNDS of data!  To analyze these data, it turned out, would be much more complicated than just getting the R code ( R is a stats program that hates me, but it's free so I put up with the abuse!) correct so the program will tell me what I want to know.  Here is the first...

"Nothing endures but change." -- Heraclitus It is indeed a time of change for the FCE LTER graduate students. One of our own, Ann Hijuelos, Trexler lab master's student and blog founder, successfully defended her thesis and has moved on to greener pastures (a real job in Baton Rouge, LA). On behalf of all of us here at the blog, I thank Ann for her leadership and wish her well in all future endeavors. In the power vacuum that resulted from Ann's departure, Jenn Sweatman, Fourqurean lab PhD student, has forcefully taken the reins of the blog and we can only hope that she is a kind and benevolent master. I am very confident that Jenn will lead us to new heights of blogitude! Also, thanks to the fearless leadership of Dr. Evelyn Gaiser and the hard work of many other FCE contributors, our NSF grant has been renewed for another six years in the amount of $5.88 million! This grant renewal ensures that vital FCE research will continue until at least 2018, and a new crop of ...

For Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) research in the Seagrass Ecosystems Lab, we venture out into Florida Bay every two months to do a survey of the submerged aquatic vegetation (seagrasses and macroalgae).   As I mentioned in my last post ( Florida Bay:  Beneath the Surface ) Florida Bay is a honeycomb of basins, which creates different habitat types.   These different habitats, specifically the type and density of vegetation on the floor and sediment type (and many other factors that are beyond the scope of this post), attribute to the color of the water.   In a single LTER trip, we see water ranging from deep blue to teal, green, and even brown!    After 2 years of running the LTER project for our lab, I am still amazed by the dynamic nature of Florida Bay on the surface and below. Darker blue waters as we travel to Sprigger Bank. At Sprigger Bank:  notice the greenish patch to the left.  There is sparse shoal grass (Halodule wrightii...

In continuation of Ann’s post a couple weeks back, conferences and meetings are very important in becoming a successful and knowledgeable graduate student. Currently, I am in Estes Park, Colorado, which is about 1.5 hours outside Denver and adjacent to Rocky Mountain National Park for the  Long-Term Ecological Research All-Scientists Meeting . In a nut-shell, this meeting is held once every three years and brings together scientists and researchers from 26 LTER sites around the country and around the world. This meeting differs from a conference by being primarily focused on cross-site and interdisciplinary collaboration. This is done by holding working group discussion sessions surrounding a particular topic. Scientist that are interested in that topic can participate in a discussion session that has a specific outcome; typically information exchange, brainstorming, or a product such as data analysis or a journal article.   Map of all 26 LTER sites ...