WaterNotes

When I lived in Delaware gray and rainy days, like today, were counted inconsequential. They happened all the time. My visits to Florida in wintertime would spark ecstatic reintroductions to sunshine and warm air and soft breezes. I would often wonder how the residents here got any work done; didnt they linger [...]

True or false: not all rainforests are found near the equator?  True!  The Pacific northwest is home to some of the largest species of trees on Earth, the redwoods.  Richard Preston gave a consuming speech on Sequoia for TED recently and pointed out a few tantalizing details about these giants not the least of which [...]

 
I have bioluminescence on the brain.  I regularly conduct plankton tows within the Indian River Lagoon system that yield a scatting of amphipod larvae, veliger stages for snails, mysids, nauplii from any number of crustaceans, and copepods galore.  Right now there are plenty of comb jellyfish (which aren’t really jellyfish at all but belong to the ctenophore group) [...]

Heard of GFP?  Green fluorescent protein is one of a slew of fluorescent proteins (FPs) used in the field of molecular biology and biotechnology to visualize genetic expression patterns in model organisms and live cells.  The original GFP, like nearly all other FPs, was sourced from various marine invertebrates hailing out of shallow water habitats including corals and jellyfish. 
Interestingly, it looks like [...]

This morning a gorgeous great blue heron flew just over head with a gigantic branch in its beak.  At first, this sight just didn’t register with any logic I had stored in my naturalist brain.  And then I remembered, in Florida, winter is nesting season for many birds. 
Florida has two major seasons: wet and dry.  Wintertime [...]