What We Do:
Our team is at the beginning of a new venture: our four PI's are working with the first two Bridging the America's Marine Conservation Fellows. We will be collaborating over the next five years to develop innovative research focused on improving our understanding of how mangrove ecosystems are responding to global change. Our team has the unique opportunity to conduct this work in two regions: the tropical estuaries that surround the Bocas Del Toro and Galeta Marine Labs in Panama, that are run by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and the sub-tropical estuaries that abut University of Florida's Whitney and Seahorse Key Marine Labs. In pursuing research in both regions and with the expertise of experimental community and ecosystem ecologists and biogeochemists, we aim to advance our knowledge of how the aggressive northward expansion of mangroves along Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts will alter the ecological structure and ecosystem functioning of herbaceous salt marsh habitat, and how the introduction of novel species is eliciting shifts in biodiversity and key ecosystem processes in Panama's mature mangrove forests.
Where We Work:
University of Florida Whitney Lab: Marineland, Florida
Our team is at the beginning of a new venture: our four PI's are working with the first two Bridging the America's Marine Conservation Fellows. We will be collaborating over the next five years to develop innovative research focused on improving our understanding of how mangrove ecosystems are responding to global change. Our team has the unique opportunity to conduct this work in two regions: the tropical estuaries that surround the Bocas Del Toro and Galeta Marine Labs in Panama, that are run by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), and the sub-tropical estuaries that abut University of Florida's Whitney and Seahorse Key Marine Labs. In pursuing research in both regions and with the expertise of experimental community and ecosystem ecologists and biogeochemists, we aim to advance our knowledge of how the aggressive northward expansion of mangroves along Florida's Gulf and Atlantic coasts will alter the ecological structure and ecosystem functioning of herbaceous salt marsh habitat, and how the introduction of novel species is eliciting shifts in biodiversity and key ecosystem processes in Panama's mature mangrove forests.
Where We Work:
University of Florida Whitney Lab: Marineland, Florida
Bocas del Toro Research Station: Bocas Town, Bocas del Toro, Panama