A Florida State University doctoral student has earned a competitive fellowship to conduct coastal and marine conservation research in the Florida Keys.

After five years of being closed, Apalachicola Bay could open back up for oyster harvesting. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is considering partially opening the Apalachicola Bay for wild oyster harvesting. The bay collapsed in 2013, and it’s been closed since 2020 to allow the oyster reefs to recover.

Biology and environmental science student Erin Tilly is making an impact at Florida State University through her dedicated research on intertidal reefs in Apalachicola Bay. As an Honors in the Major student and an IDEA Grant recipient, Tilly is committed to assessing reef conditions in the Big Bend region. Her work has been recognized at conferences and symposiums across the country.

Hawkins, a fourth-year doctoral student studying ecology and evolutionary biology through the Department of Biological Science, used a mass spawning event from two years ago as the basis of her dissertation research, which explores releasing hatchery-raised shellfish into the wild to restore the collapsed scallop populations in local seagrass beds. Her work falls under FSUCML’s broader Apalachicola Bay System Initiative, a program conducting research to inform sustainable management and restoration methods to aid regulation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

FSUCML alumnus Dr. Bryan Keller and faculty member Dr. Dean Grubbs have published their findings of increased surface level sea water temperatures on bonnethead migrations. To better understand the effects of climatic variation on migratory behavior, they used passive acoustic telemetry to track the migrations of 44 bonnetheads, Sphyrna tiburo, tagged in the North Edisto River, South Carolina. They monitored individuals for up to 2804 days along ~ 1070 km of United States Atlantic coastline.

t’s a somber anniversary in the Florida Keys. This time last year, residents and tourists began witnessing the bizarre behavior of fish spinning disoriented and acting distressed. The phenomenon impacted more than 80 species of fish and rays and stunned onlookers and social media users. But it was the critically endangered smalltooth sawfish that suffered the biggest loss. At least 54 were reported dead by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission from Key West, north to the Saint Lucie River, to even as far as Tampa Bay.

Bryan Keller graduated from Florida State University in 2020 with a doctorate in biological oceanography through the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, part of the College of Arts and Sciences. While at FSU, Keller was selected for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea Grant Knauss Fellowship, which matches highly qualified graduate students with hosts in the legislative and executive branches of government in Washington, D.C. and allows fellows to gain experience in fields such as marine resource management. The fellowship led to Keller’s current role as a foreign affairs specialist for NOAA, traveling the world to represent the U.S. and negotiate on issues related to fisheries management on the high seas.

Joel Trexler, director of the Coastal and Marine Laboratory, has designed a project with multiple components to better understand the issues facing the springs and the possible solutions for remediation. Trexler will focus on compiling existing research about the spring as well as conducting new work to address gaps in current knowledge.

Crystal River is famous for its manatees, when hundreds flock snout to snout in the warm waters of Three Sisters Spring during winter cold snaps. But there's also a key species hiding in its waters that most people never heard of. We go on a trip to Crystal River, where two FSU scientists, Alyssa Andres and Harrison Clark, are researching bull sharks.

National Geographic spoke to FSUCML's Dr. Dean Grubbs about the investigation into what was causing unusual behavior in smalltooth sawfish and efforts to help this critically endangered species.