In the center of the grassland and shrubland of the Jornada LTER, I gaze across short mesh nets, arranged in an X and stretching approximately one foot across in each direction, sitting unobtrusively on the ground between mesquite, bushes, and snakeweed bunches. Spherical cottontail rabbit pellets congregated in the low places, and Josh Anderson, Reserve…
LTER Road Trip – Lessons Near and Far from Jornada
Dr. Debra Peters has spent over 20 years studying changes across 15 study sites in the Jornada Basin, which take an immense amount of effort to monitor three times a year. Field technicians fan out across the landscape, measuring the volume of plant line and estimating new growth, a process that takes weeks for each…
National Parks Traveler – Battling Lionfish at Biscayne Bay
Lionfish. Impossibly beautiful, incredibly invasive. Arriving on Florida’s shores in the 20th century, the initial lionfish population invasion probably resulted from an accidental or intentional release from a hobbyist fish tank. Since then, their numbers have exploded, stretching across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Reef species, lionfish cruise these aquatic habitats for prey, both outcompeting…
E. Zambello Writing and Art 