• Dozens of Eastern indigo snakes have been released in Florida as part of the Nature Conservancy’s program to reintroduce the rare native species to its historical habitat. Eastern indigo snakes prey on venomous snakes, but they are nonvenomous themselves and are not aggressive when approached. They are also the longest snakes native to the U.S. reaching up to nine feet in length. Habitat loss and fragmentation are the main proponents of their decline, but programs like this aim to restore the Eastern indigo’s presence and role in maintaining north Florida’s longleaf pine forests.     
  • Prepare yourselves, beachgoers! Scientists at the University of South Florida (USF) predict this summer could be the worst seaweed season, with up to 40% more seaweed onshore than Florida’s previous record in 2022. Scientists at USF’s Optical Oceanography Lab speculate that these floating masses of seaweed, called sargassum, are forming earlier than usual due to warmer-than-normal ocean temperatures in the western Atlantic Ocean. Using satellite imagery, the scientists estimate there are currently 30 million metric tons of seaweed in the far-out Atlantic Ocean, but they can’t be sure how much of that will land on Florida’s beaches.   
  • The Tampa Bay Times reveals new developments in the race to save Florida’s rapidly declining coral reefs. Warming ocean temperatures result in a phenomenon called coral bleaching, which occurs when algae symbiotic with corals get stressed by the extreme water conditions and leave their home coral. This results in the death of the coral, and on a larger scale, extreme impacts to the health of coral reefs. Elkhorn corals recovered prior to an extreme bleaching event two years ago off the Tampa Bay coast of Florida were maintained and reproduced at The Florida Aquarium’s coral breeding lab. Now, the offspring of these surviving corals are being moved to the Keys Marine Laboratory on Long Key to be rehomed in offshore reefs or nurseries. Scientists maintain hope that these corals may hold the key to increasing coral resistance to heat-related reef degradation.   
  • Humans have been influencing their environment for longer than they have known to observe its changes. We might not have direct observations of what habitats looked like thousands of years ago, but the planet is pretty good at recording its past. Conservation paleobiology is an emerging branch of paleoecology that seeks to understand the unrecorded past of our environment by looking at the most recent fossil record to reconstruct long-gone ecosystems. Paleobiologists at the Florida Museum have been using it to explore seagrass presence and health in the northern half of Florida’s Gulf Coast by studying mollusk diversity. They found that seagrass habitat had been faring well for the last several millennia, including the most recent one where humans have made it challenging for seagrass beds to thrive. And with proper management, they may stay that way for millennia to come.    
  • A recent study by Florida Atlantic University researchers reveals a significant decline in parasite populations within Florida’s Indian River Lagoon. Though that might sound positive, it is actually a sign of major ecosystem threats. In the 1970s, the Indian River lagoon was considered among Florida’s cleanest coastal lagoons. Now, it suffers from pollution and harmful algal blooms (HABs) due to excess nutrients from agriculture and urban runoff, leading to the degradation of essential habitats like seagrass beds. These environmental stressors have disrupted the lagoon’s food web, resulting in an 11% overall decrease in parasite levels and a 17% drop in larval parasites requiring multiple hosts, compared to similar ecosystems worldwide. The study, conducted between October 2022 and October 2023, involved sampling fish and crustaceans across six sites in the central and southern IRL, focusing on areas where seagrass was beginning to recover after a 2019 die-off. Researchers identified parasites using both visual methods and DNA barcoding, finding lower infection rates than expected. These findings suggest a simplified and less resilient ecosystem, underscoring the importance of parasite monitoring as a tool for assessing and guiding the restoration of the IRL’s ecological health.  
  • University of Florida researchers, in collaboration with scientists from North Carolina State University and the University of South Florida, have developed a next-day prediction model to forecast harmful algal blooms (HABs) in Florida’s waterways. Funded by two U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grants totaling $4.4 million, the project focuses on the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary, a critical link between Lake Okeechobee and Florida’s southwestern coast. The model utilizes water samples and computer algorithms to predict chlorophyll-a levels, a pigment indicative of algal bloom conditions. Unlike traditional forecasting models, this system is designed for practical, daily decision-making, aiding water managers, particularly in the Southwest Florida Water Management District, to mitigate the risks associated with HABs. Researchers plan to expand this model to other freshwater bodies globally, enhancing the ability to predict and manage harmful algal blooms effectively.    
  • A recent discovery by the Florida Museum of Natural History has unveiled the first known tegu fossil in the United States, suggesting that these reptiles inhabited North America over 15 million years ago. The fossil, a half-inch vertebra, was unearthed in the early 2000s from a clay mine near the Florida-Georgia border but remained unidentified for two decades. Jason Bourque, a fossil preparator at the museum, revisited the specimen and, upon comparing it with known tegu vertebrae, recognized its significance. To confirm the identification, Bourque collaborated with Edward Stanley, director of the museum’s digital imaging lab, employing machine learning techniques to analyze the fossil’s morphology. This finding indicates that tegus, now considered invasive in Florida due to their introduction via the pet trade in the 1990s, are not entirely new to the region. They hope studies like this will continue to highlight the importance of museum specimens and help to fill in historical knowledge gaps.  
  • To manage pH levels and increase sugarcane production, South Florida growers sometimes apply sulfur to the soil. Sulfur from sugarcane production can runoff into the nearby Everglades and react with mercury in wetlands to create the neurotoxin methylmercury. Through sampling mosquitofish across wetlands near agricultural canals in the Everglades National Park, researchers at the University of California, Davis found that sulfur runoff caused methylmercury concentrations to accumulate in fish up to 10 million times more than the water the fish live in. “It could have effects on cognition, on development, and it’s preventable to some degree because we know what changes we can make to decrease mercury levels in fish in managed wetlands,” said lead researcher Brett Poulin, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Toxicology.   
  • Recent cuts to funding and staffing at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have many weather professionals concerned about the quality of forecasts this hurricane season, which begins June 1st. Many local meteorological offices across Florida have lost much of their staff, with some offices down by 30%. This raises concerns, as common tasks like balloon launches to improve forecast models are no longer being carried out regularly in some cases. This threatens the integrity of hurricane modelling systems, which rely on consistent model improvements to maintain accuracy. Despite these possible hindrances for hurricane forecasting, the executive director of the Florida Department of Emergency Management reassures reporters from “The Florida Roundup” that they will be prepared and ready to respond this hurricane season.