FGCU

This past week was spent at FGCU. After getting settled in on Sunday, we had a barbecue where we meet Dr. Douglas and had a run down of the week's schedule. On Monday, we worked with Dr. Savarese and took a more geological approach to the Estero Bay area. We visited Mound Key, an archeological site for the Calusa Indians, and learned some of the theories on their stay in the area. We also took coring samples from an oyster reef. When we got back, we analyzed the samples and were actually able to predict what habitats the sample site may have gone through in the thousands of years that our coring sample captured.

 Analyzing the cores collected.



On Tuesday, we met with Cheryl Clark from the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve (EBAP) and learned about the organizations mission and goals. Out in the field, we removed the plastic netting from a failed oyster restoration project and observed a nesting colony of birds (also referred to as a rookery).

Me holding up a prized piece of netting.

On Wednesday, we went out in the field with Dr. Parsons to collect phytoplankton and zooplankton samples. In the lab, we looked under microscopes and dissecting scopes to analyze what we found. We classified our samples and shared our findings.

 Analyzing what we collected.


On Thursday, we went out with Dr. Douglas and sampled different areas looking for species of seagrass. Part of the goal was to see if the aerial photographs accurately predicted whether or not seagrass was present. In many of the areas, we did not find the abundant amount of seagrass that was predicted, but the photos were from 2004 and outdated. When we got back, we complied the data and made graphs to depict our findings.

 Going through a trawled netting sample looking for various organisms.