Restoration Ecology 2013: The First Few Weeks at GTMNERR

Hello All!
My name is Kierstin and I am a Junior majoring in Coastal Environmental Science at the University of North Florida. I've lived in Jacksonville all my life and I am really excited to take this course and learn more about restoring some of the natural environments around me. Growing up in Jacksonville I have had the opportunity to live near some of the most beautiful ecosystems Northeast Florida has to offer and it is the least I can do to help preserve some of these locations for future generations.
The first few weeks at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (phew, that was a mouthful) aka the GTMNERR have been very informative. On our first trip as a class out to the reserve we were able to visit the site that our project will take place as well as several other locations around the GTMNERR. We learned some of the basics about how a marsh is formed as well as some of the vegetation that can be found in a marsh ecosystem and how they come to occupy an area. We also went over a few basic techniques in sampling a site as well as actually performing sediment core samples at the beach located adjacent to the Educational Center.
The following week we made another trip to the GTMNERR to practice collecting water quality parameters and water samples above and below the dam at Guana Lake. This was a shortened trip due to the fact that we had to return to the UNF campus to actually analyze the water samples collected. While still on-site we used a YSI to take water quality parameters such as water temperature, conductivity, salinity and dissolved oxygen in locations both above and below the dam. We also collected plankton samples using a a net with very fine mesh. When we returned to campus we separated into two groups. The first group used the water samples to calculate color, turbidity, concentration of chlorophyll-a and the presence of ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, and phosphates. The second group analyzed the plankton samples from each site and determined cell counts as well as attempted to classify the plankton.
This week we focused on collecting macrofaunal samples above and below the dam. We used a 75' Seine net to collect fish and crustaceans in the area. We then put the samples into various buckets to work up the samples. To do this we had o identify everything caught, measure the lengths on up to 20 of each species as well as measure the species abundance of each species. We also had to work quickly in order to prevent as much death as possible. There was quite an abundance of species collected- southern flounder, sea trout, mojarra, blue crabs, silversides, anchovies, and more.