Last Thursday, there was a prescribed burn in the longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) unit of the FSUCML’s North 70 property. Crawfordville based company, Attack-One Fire Management Services, Inc., lead the burn, with assistance from a Tall Timbers crew. The FSUCML wants to extend a huge thank you to everyone involved to make sure it was completed successfully and safely! For more information on prescribed burns and how they help encourage plant re-growth, read this article about our burn last year.

Katherine Henning, a research assistant in Dr. Jeroen Ingels’ Meiolab at the FSUCML, was awarded an IDEA grant by Florida State University to take sediment samples from the Fenholloway and the Econfina rivers this summer. These samples are necessary to continue monitoring the health of the Fenholloway after the Cellulose Mill in Perry, FL relocated its wastewater pipeline to a location closer to the coast.

Announcing a recent publication in the ‘Fish Movement’ special issue of Environmental Biology of Fishes from Ashley Dawdy, a current PhD student of the Grubbs lab. This publication is a result of Ashley’s undergraduate Honors in the Major thesis, completed here at FSU with former Grubbs lab students Dr. Cheston Peterson and Dr. Bryan Keller!

Mark your calendars! FSU’s Great Give is March 9th! This year, FSUCML is asking you to donate to our Academic Diving Scholarship Fund in hopes of making this a yearly scholarship opportunity. Please donate here on March 9th! https://spark.fsu.edu/fsucmldive

FSUCML is excited to announce two new publications this month from FSUCML researchers and their collaborators. The publications examine spatial-temporal patterns in two marine catfish species that utilize the Apalachicola Bay, and risk of commercial bycatch to endangered smalltooth sawfish in Florida fisheries. (Photo credit: Tonya Wiley)

December is historically a month full of celebration and this year is no different! All of us at FSUCML are celebrating the success and graduation of two of our students, Ph.D. Candidate Alex Hooks and MSc student Nika Blank! Although they will be deeply missed at the lab, we are so excited to watch them both continue to flourish in the next steps of their careers. Read below to learn about Alex and Nika’s FSU journeys and find out where they are headed next.

Dr. Grubbs’ lab recently spent 8 days in the Marquesas Keys with scientists from the Shedd Aquarium, the Field Museum and Bimini Biological Field Station to tag and collect valuable data from various species of elasmobranchs.

Recently, EcoWatch wrote a spectacular article on Ph.D. candidate, Bobbie Renfro, and her work on sponges in the Florida Keys with the Islamorada Conservation and Restoration Education (I.CARE) organization. Bobbie’s research at FSU revolves around the effects of nutrient enrichment on Caribbean reef sponges, and her expertise and passion for studying these invertebrates has proved invaluable in her ground-breaking work with I.CARE.

As the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission debates reopening the Goliath Grouper fishery in Florida state waters, stakeholders and policymakers turned to FSU researchers for their expertise on the matter. Former Marine Lab Director Dr. Felicia Coleman, former faculty member Dr. Chris Koenig, and former PhD student Dr. Chris Malinowski were recently interviewed by National Geographic about the ongoing debate.

Ph.D. Candidates Johanna Imhoff, Kevin Olsen, and Cheston Peterson all successfully defended their dissertations and graduated during FSU’s 2021 summer commencement!  All of us at the Marine Lab are so proud of the accomplishments of these standout scholars and we are thrilled to watch them fledge to grow even more in their chosen professions. So where are they headed now?