This week we were at UNF in Jacksonville. What a busy and exciting week! We started on Memorial Day with a visit to the beaches, where we learned about the coquina rocks which are scattered along the shoreline. These provide structure on which sessile animals can attach, and the weathered-out holes in them form small tide pools which give small fish and invertebrates shelter from predators. We also visited two inlets, one natural and one jettied. We learned about the differences between the two, and why the jettied inlet is preferred by real estate owners and boasters, while the natural inlet can support the important ecological zone of the salt marsh.

The next day we began a 24-hour survey of a channel which is dammed to form a lake. We compared water quality and species abundance found in seine net hauls between different times of day and the lake portion vs. the flowing tide-affected section. Here's Brian and I pulling our first seine haul from the lake, and Dr. Courtney Hackney talking a bit about what we found:

When we came back completely exhausted from a full 24 hours working, we entered our data into a spreadsheet for later analysis.

On Thursday, we took a trip down the St. John's River, heading 34 miles upriver to reach a low-salinity (3 parts per thousand) mixing zone between fresh and sea water. At the 34 mile mark we measured water chemistry parameters, pulled a plankton net, then headed downriver, stopping at four more points to measure water quality, and we pulled a plankton net at the point furthest downriver.

 

Dr. Smith Discussing What We're Seeing On the River

Once we had returned from the river we performed data analysis on the numbers collected there and on the data collected during the 24 hour survey, generating various graphs of the correlations between variables. On Friday we discussed our data and graphs, and after lunch we took a skills and knowledge exam.

After a delicious dinner in the best school cafeteria I've ever enjoyed a group of us got together for a ghost tour of St. Augustine, the oldest city in the continental U.S., then on Saturday morning we went to the Jacksonville Zoo, which was a lot of fun and a good chance to get to know each other better.

Now that this exciting, exhausting (in a good way) week is over, I'm thrilled to be heading to the Keys Marine Lab on Sunday for a week focused on coral habitats!