By: Avah Avonda Hello again, my name is Avah and I am a research intern at the GTM Research Reserve in northeastern Florida. Oysters are a staple in research here at GTM, and for good reason. Not only are they a common, delicious dish of the restaurants in our area and a paddle boarder’s fear,…
A Research Intern at GTM
By Avah Avonda Hello, NERRds! My name is Avah and I am spending my summer at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR as a research intern. I had the opportunity to take part in many moving projects here at GTM and I would like to share them here! Let’s look at my highlights of the summer. …
Day in the Life of Oyster Monitoring
By Kyelee Spence Hello again, NERRds! My name is Kyelee Spence, and I am an intern in the communication department at GTM. I am halfway through my internship and have gotten to learn so many different and interesting things in my time at GTM. One of my favorite experiences so far was getting to go…
Sediment Tiling
By Kyelee Spence Hello NERRds! My name is Kyelee Spence and I am an intern in the communication department at GTM Research Reserve. I sat down with Research Director Nikki Dix and discussed an experiment that was done during Hurricane Ian. It involves a square tile, sediment and the marsh. Follow along as we take…
Revisiting the Reefs
By Alee Knoell Oysters, lately they seem to be the belle of the estuary. But hey, it’s a well deserved title- they do quite a lot! And with oyster monitoring back in full swing, they are getting even more attention here at the reserve. With accessibility often requiring battling nor’easter winds and sinking as low…
Drumming up Data
By Alee Knoell Welcome, fellow NERRds, to the second installment of our Species Spotlight series, where our light today shines on Sciaenops ocellatus. S. ocellatus has many aliases: red drum, redfish, red bass, and spot-tailed bass, to name a few. Reaching five feet in length and 90 pounds, the red drum is one of Florida’s…
Knowing the NERRDs: Education
By Alee Knoell If you’re reading this, you are probably well aware of the GTM Research Reserve; maybe you utilize the trails, maybe you dabble in some volunteer work, maybe you’ve just popped in to take a look at all the cool stuff in the Visitors Center. Regardless of your relationship with the Reserve, you…
To Weed or Not to Weed
By Alee Knoell Welcome, readers, to the first installment of our NERRd-y “Species Spotlight” series! We’re really excited to begin highlighting some of the flora and fauna found within the 74,000+ acres of protected areas of the GTM Research Reserve. Our first species comes from work done on one of our newest long-term monitoring projects:…
Oyster Spat: Reflecting on 2019
BY ALEE KNOELL If you are familiar with this blog, you are likely familiar with the grand journey of the oyster as well. How after weeks and weeks of floating through the water column, the microscopic oyster larvae find themselves a surface they deem worthy enough to make permanent residence. Subsequent to this attachment, the…
A summer of burrows
By Maddie Paris, Guest Writer Hey there, NERRds! Today we have a special blog post written by one of our summer interns here at the GTM Research Reserve. So sit back, grab your coffee, and we hope you enjoy! Working at GTM has been a whirlwind. Among many other skills, I’ve learned how to design…
A big little deal
By Alee Knoell It’s National Oyster Day! For most of us, this may simply mean one-dollar oysters at your favorite seafood restaurant. But, although the saying goes “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”, the oysters edible insides aren’t their only noteworthy attribute. It’s likely that we’ve all at least seen an oyster, be it…
“What’s that do?”: Measuring water quality on oyster reefs
By Adrienne Breef-Pilz, Guest Writer Earlier, our lab wrote a post about working in the GTMNERR where we are looking at nonconsumptive effects on oyster reefs. Additionally, we are collecting data on the survival and the growth of the oysters at nine different sites within the reserve. We do this by looking at how oysters…
Audubon Climate Watch
By Linda Burek, Guest Writer The National Audubon Society has implemented a program called Climate Watch, which uses developed models to predict seasonal changes in bird populations as a result of the changing climate. They are seeking to validate those models through a community science program. They have chosen to start the program by monitoring…
Baby Snake Release Party
By Jessica Lee, Guest Writer Interning at GTM is full of surprises. One of my favorites so far was the day we got to release 20 baby rat snakes into the wild. Back in June, a yellow rat snake (Pantherophis obsoleta quadrivittata) unexpectedly laid eggs while in captivity. I say unexpectedly because the mama snake…
Nonconsumptive Effects: a story of oysters and mud crabs
Happy almost Thanksgiving, NERRds! We are so thankful for all the opportunities we have and the people that are in our NERRd-y lives. The collaborative projects we are able to work on at the GTM Research Reserve have allowed us to interact with so many different people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines that…
NERRd OUT of water
By Jessica Lee, Guest Writer Like any good intern, when my supervisor Shannon asked me if I wanted to spend a day with Resource Management, I said yes without hesitation. It wasn’t until after she left the room that I thought to ask, “What is resource management?” Perhaps I should have taken notice to what…
Teambuilding in Tallahassee: Where do our samples go?
Hey there, it’s been awhile. Many of you know how summer field seasons go – in the blink of an eye, that’s how! It feels like just yesterday we were planning for the upcoming summer of our own monitoring as well as assisting visiting scientists conducting their research at the Reserve. Alas, time flew and…
Our Changing NERR-borhood
By Gabriela Canas, Guest Writer The GTM is special for many reasons but one that makes it particularly unique is its location. And with great [location] comes great responsibility (thanks, Spiderman). Located right on the boundary between the tropical and temperate zones, our estuary is considered to be an ecotone, or “transitional” zone (think awkward…
[magick]-ally adding images to figures
By Shannon Dunnigan I create most of my data visualizations using R, which for most people seems like such a daunting task. Yes, R certainly has a learning curve, especially if you are not familiar with writing code, but there are so many cool things you can create using it! We have talked about R…
Florida Institute of Oceanography visits the GTMNERR again
By Sam Shaw, Guest Writer What is better than walking mangrove transects in the marsh on a hot and sunny day? Walking them on an overcast and rainy day, without a doubt. For this year’s Florida Institute of Oceanography’s Marine Field Studies class, a group of students was able to experience what it takes to conduct…
Warmer beaches skew slightly more female hatchlings
Did you miss the first post about this investigation into the incubation temperatures of loggerhead sea turtle nests in the Florida panhandle? No worries, check it out here! By Megan Lamb, Guest Blogger In 2016, I began looking at incubation temperatures, the amount of metabolic heating going on in an egg clutch, of loggerhead sea turtle…
Studying loggerhead sea turtle incubation temperatures on Florida panhandle barrier islands
By Megan Lamb, Guest Blogger Did you know that the temperature at which a sea turtle nest incubates will determine if the hatchlings are male or female? This is called temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) and is very common in reptile species, including alligators, land and sea turtles, and some lizards. Research has shown that the…
A field day with Flagler College
By Shannon Dunnigan This past weekend research and stewardship NERRds at the GTMNERR had a great field day leading Flagler College students out to the GTMNERR’s Wright’s Landing artificial reef site where students assisted in collecting measurements on the percent cover of live oysters and dimensions for each of the 28 individual artificial reefs. …
Water Quality in the Guana Ecosystem
By Nikki Dix, Shannon Dunnigan, and Silas Tanner Another great reason to love working at a NERR is that we operate at so many levels. We have national, regional, and local programs that steer our research, education, and stewardship of the estuaries within our boundaries. Many of the projects we work on here at the…
the wrap up
By Kaitlyn Dietz I think that one of the most important components of an event is the “after wrap-up/ debrief/ collapse in your chair”. The weeks following State of the Reserve have been just a busy as those before the event. We have been reviewing evaluations, summarizing panel discussions, highlighting key parts of presentations and…
Take two!
By Shannon Dunnigan Don’t ever be afraid to ask for help. When our water quality housing broke [again] at our San Sebastian site (remember when we talked about replacing that darn thing??) in January, we threw in the towel and asked for help in making that station better. Clearly, after breaking for a second time in…
Preparing for presentations
By Shannon Dunnigan and Kaitlyn Dietz Preparing for an upcoming presentation is probably one of the most stressful experiences I have ever had. Not only are you time-restricted in many talks (that evil 12-minute window), but finding the EXACT information that summarizes your research perfectly is incredibly difficult. Currently, I am developing a presentation Pam and…
The visualization of rain
By Shannon Dunnigan I am sure most of you NERRds can agree that the visualization of data is an integral part of the scientific process. In fact, I would further argue that it does not simply occur ONCE, but multiple times throughout the process. Visualization is a key step in detecting patterns and relationships within…
The experiment
Grab your coffee and enjoy the second installment of a two-part series written by guest writer, Madison Toonder. She continues with her investigation into the effects of sunscreen on oysters. If you missed her first post (or it has been awhile since you read it) in which she discusses how she got started on her project,…
NERRds on the Water 