nature

In this video of our latest EcoAdventure down the Wacissa, someone made a comment that, a month after we taped it, has biologists, DEP officials, and Green Guides aiding us on a quest to understand where all the limpkins at Wakulla Springs went.

Part two of our Green Guide EcoAdventure takes us down the Wacissa River. One of our Guides was George Weymouth, a painter, sculptor, and arrowhead maker with an intense eye for detail. Watch this web exclusive video to see how he plucks a scene from his memory and layers on feathers, scales, and ripples.

EcoAdventures North Florida travels up the St. Marks River in search of some local history in this video featuring Captain James Hodges, a Wakulla Green Guide.

What’s not to love about oysters? They clean the water, they’re delicious, and they have surprising economic value. Some members of the Kimbro lab found an oyster that seems to love them back.

If you want an activity that will take a lot of your time, go out onto your lawn and try to figure out which blades of grass belong to what individual plant. The grass in a salt marsh, like your lawn, is made up of various individuals, each with different characteristics that contribute to the success of a marsh. Dr. Randall Hughes’ new experiment looks at what makes habitat building cordgrass individuals successful.

Watch oysters grow! Tanya Rogers of the FSUCML has compiled time lapse imagery which shows baby oysters grow and form a shell over the course of a year.

When David Kimbro looks through his trick-or-treat bag, he doesn’t see candy, he sees oyster shells and periwinkle snails. Can predators trick periwinkles into not destroying marsh cordgrass? Or will they serve as tasty treats for blue crabs? David shares his data.

Audio from the October 6 Perspectives broadcast on Rivertrek 2011. Ten paddlers set out on a five day trip to raise awareness about the Apalachicola River, a body of water that supports life along its basin and into Apalachicola Bay.

Randall and David continue unraveling the mysteries of how predators affect their prey through fear. In this experiment, they look at how many oysters get eaten by mud crabs when the mud crabs think their predators are lurking around and eating their neighbors.

FSU Coastal & Marine Lab technician Tanya Rogers describes the building of what she calls “ecological art.” She is referring to the Kimbro lab’s summer experiment, for which several artificial oyster reefs with different combinations of animals was built near St. Augustine, FL.