It’s just another day at the office for research assistant, Stephanie Koontz, as she heads out of the research buildings at Archbold Biological Station to work with some of the rarest plant species in Florida. “A favorite childhood memory of mine is removing the seeds of an apple core, placing them on a wet paper towel and watching them emerge over the next few days.” But, she adds, “If only germination was this easy with seeds of rare plants. Finding the right conditions for a seed to germinate and then helping that seedling survive to adulthood can be a bigger challenge than one might imagine.” Continue reading →

Wetlands are an important component of Florida landscapes. They provide shelter for plants and animals, which in turn attract naturalists, hunters or anglers. Look in the air and you might be able to see a Snail Kite in search of a Florida Apple Snail. Bend over, and there it is, a fascinating pitcher plant digesting its insect meal. In Central Florida, you might even see cows wandering around in freshwater wetlands. Here, they find good quality forage and a nice cooling station during the summer months. Setting aside mosquitoes, what’s not to love about wetlands? Yet, wetlands are threatened worldwide, facing pollution and land conversion. Continue reading →

Florida’s landscape varies from sandy beaches to dense forests and swampy wetlands. This range of habitats allows a wide variety of animals to thrive. One of our larger groups of animals is the amphibians, which includes frogs, toads, and salamanders. In Florida there are more than 30 species of frogs and toads. And in Highlands County, our own backyard, one can find 18 different types of frogs and toads. However, not all of these species were originally from Florida; a few are non-native and some of these are considered invasive. Continue reading →

The sun shines brightly, the wind carries the songs of the birds and the buzzing of the bees. Walking the trails at Archbold Biological Station and observing the beauty of the Florida scrub, one’s senses can be easily stimulated. But can the same beauty and nature be seen indoors in a research laboratory? In Archbold’s bug lab, nineteen, seven-foot-tall, hunter-green cabinets tower above scientists and students. Inside each of these cabinets, twenty-five basswood, glass-top drawers protect hundreds of thousands of pinned insect specimens, most of which have been collected over the decades at Archbold Biological Station. Each insect specimen is stored in its correct drawer, like a giant filing system, so that any trained biologist can quickly navigate to the right specimen. Continue reading →

There are many beautiful natural areas in Florida. In places such as Myakka River State Park and Everglades National Park people can walk for miles across lands barely changed by humans. Florida also has vast areas of lands, such as cattle ranches, which contain both natural habitats, lands improved for agriculture, and disturbed areas. At Archbold Biological Station we own or manage nearly 20,000 acres serving as natural laboratories for scientific research, education, and conservation. Some of the Archbold property is pristine, wild Florida, as it was hundreds of years ago. But many parts of the land Archbold owns and manages were, at some point, and often decades ago, altered from their natural condition. According to Kevin Main, Land Manager at Archbold, “In some places at Archbold, especially on the 3,600-acre area known as the Reserve, we have chosen to focus on restoring these altered lands back to a more natural condition. Most native animals and plants, including many threatened and endangered species, require natural ecosystems in order to thrive.” Continue reading →

“It has really opened my eyes!” “I have a student about to start graduate school for entomology (the study of insects) and I don’t think he slept at all, just running around the buildings all night looking at insects.” “Your facilities are fantastic!” “The great thing about Archbold is its placement in an ecosystem that is not found anywhere else on Earth, so we had a unique experience.” These are just some of the many expressions we hear from students and faculty that visit Archbold Biological Station with their classes during their college spring break. Continue reading →

With the increasingly severe drought during this years’ dry season, there is a lot of news about wildfires. As one of the lightning capitals of the continent, fire has been a natural part of the cycle of life in Florida for millennia. Fire is essential to conserve the Florida scrub that we love and protect at Archbold Biological Station and elsewhere in Highlands County. Fire is essential for maintenance of many other Florida ecosystems including pinelands, prairies, and most wetlands. Continue reading →

Have you ever thought about the “artistic” side of scientific discovery? In a famous lecture in 1959, British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow, lamented that ‘intellectual life’ was split into two cultures—namely the sciences and the humanities—and that this was a major limitation for addressing the world’s problems. Nowadays scientists are increasingly reaching out to writers, poets, artists, and musicians to help them interpret and share their data and findings, not as tables, figures, and statistics, but rather by creating new works of art that reach a far wider audiences. One such arts-science alliance is a recent interpretation of the long-term data from Lake Annie, a 67′ deep, 90-acre sinkhole lake located on the property of Archbold Biological Station. Lake Annie is celebrated by scientists worldwide for the data from the sediments at the bottom of the lake which document the history of Florida extending back nearly 40,000 years. The lake is also important scientifically for its long-term monitoring of many lake measures including water depth, temperature, pH, color, oxygen levels, and plankton communities. Continue reading →

We all know that spring has sprung…but what was our cue? Maybe it was the 85 degree days in February or the orange blossoms or the scrub-jays nesting – but what cue did the jay’s use to know that it was time to breed? Continue reading →

The natural areas of Highlands and Polk Counties are dominated by a sandy, shrubby landscape known as Florida scrub. There are many types of Florida scrub all defined by the plant species that inhabit them. One especially interesting type of Florida scrub is the rosemary scrub. Take a walk through a rosemary scrub habitat and you might notice some rather striking things. Bare white sand patches connect like a path, weaving in and out among a maze of large Florida Rosemary shrubs, the dominant plant species for which this unique habitat is named. Most populations of Florida Rosemary occur along coastal dune habitats from Florida north to South Carolina and west to Mississippi. Florida Rosemary are found in relict populations on remaining patches of Florida scrub occurring on the high dry sandy ridge that runs north-south through Highlands County, known as the Lake Wales Ridge. The Lake Wales Ridge dates back to a time, nearly a million years ago, when sea levels were much higher. Found at the top of these ancient rolling sand dunes, the rosemary scrub habitat looks like sandy islands in a sea of a dense vegetation. And yet, it is in this rosemary scrub habitat, along those open pathways between the Florida Rosemary plants, where most of the Lake Wales Ridge endangered plant species are found. Florida Rosemary itself is not endangered although it is listed as a threatened species in coastal Georgia, but rosemary scrub habitat has seen significant decline due to development, earlier conversion to agriculture, and hurricane damage along coastal populations. Continue reading →

On Valentine’s Day biologists at the Archbold Biological Station enjoy sending and receiving romantic gifts of flowers just as much as anybody else. The colors and fragrances of flowers make them a perfect gift. Out in nature, however, biologists appreciate the messages of flowers in a different way. Most wildflowers are sending signals to insects, using perfumes or attractive color displays to advertise nectar and pollen. Pollen is the fine powdery substance produced by male plants (think, flower sperm) that is carried by insects (or other animals, or wind) to the female part of the flower and fertilizes it. Some insects, especially bees, eat pollen or provide it to their larvae as food. Nectar is the sugary liquid plants produce, especially in their flowers, to encourage (reward) visits by insects and other animals. Continue reading →

Meet the Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi). Reaching six to eight feet in length, this “blue” beauty is North America’s longest native snake. It is so quiet and elusive, few people may even be aware of its existence. Indigo snakes are nonvenomous, covered in shiny black scales and live only in the southeastern US, where they eat a diverse diet of small prey, primarily other snakes, frogs, mice and other small mammals. The indigo snakes are “top predators,” even though that term usually conjures images of animals like panthers and wolves.  Continue reading →

A few months ago researchers from Archbold Biological Station’s Avian Ecology Program traveled to Osceola National Forest in north Florida to bring six Federally Endangered Red-cockaded Woodpeckers back to Avon Park Air Force Range. Called ‘translocation’, moving birds from large populations to small populations is a conservation tool used on critically endangered species throughout the world. Along with prescribed fire and management of the trees used by the woodpeckers for their nest cavities, translocation is an increasingly important tool for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers. Osceola National Forest’s Red-cockaded Woodpecker population is large enough that it is considered a donor population, able to sustain the removal of a few birds to help other smaller populations grow. Continue reading →

On March 18, Florida’s environmental educators are gathering for the 2017 League of Environmental Educators of Florida (LEEF) Spring Mini-Conference in Apollo Beach. One hundred are expected to attend, including Archbold Biological Station’s Education Coordinator, Dustin Angell. “These conferences never fail to inspire me and I am able to apply so much of what I learn back at Archbold,” says Angell. So, what is an environmental educator and why do they have a league? Continue reading →

Research led by Dr. Betsey Boughton at Archbold’s MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Center (MAERC), together with a team from University of Central Florida has been addressing how Florida ranchers might maintain and enhance wetlands found on their ranches. About one-third of the headwaters of the Everglades is ranchland, like MAERC, and we all benefit from valuable natural services provided by wetlands on ranches. Continue reading →

Plants like Avon Park Harebells (Crotalaria avonensis) make other rare, endemic (only found in one area) plants seem common. This yellow-flowered, deep-rooted pea occurs at just three Florida scrub sites, all in Highlands and Polk counties, near Avon Park (hence the Latin name). Discovered by Avon Park botanist Kris DeLaney in the 1980s, the Harebell is an exciting find for any plant enthusiast. According to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, It is ‘at grave danger of extinction’ and ‘without active and concerted conservation efforts, this species may be lost’. Highlands and Polk counties support one of the highest concentrations of endemic plants and animals in the United States. Many of these endemic species are endangered or threatened and the Avon Park Harebells are among the rarest of these. Continue reading →

Florida Grasshopper Sparrow. Photo: Dustin Angell

Newcomers to Highlands County are often impressed with the local bird life. Sandhill Cranes, Roseate Spoonbills, and Great Egrets dazzle with their size and beauty. Wood Storks feed in roadside ditches and Osprey nest in trees and on utility poles. Locals appreciate the delicate beauty of Tree Swallow flocks in the evening and know to await the appearance of Swallow-tailed Kites as one of the first signs of spring. Over 200 kinds of birds can be seen in Highlands County and some are better known than others. “There is one bird in Highlands County that most people who live or visit here have never heard of, and that’s unfortunate, because it’s Florida’s rarest and most imperiled one,” says Archbold’s Education Coordinator Dustin Angell. He aims to change that with a new photo essay called “Saving the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow.” Continue reading →

Reflections on 1721’s Ordeal:  1721’s ordeal sparked strong emotions among Archbold researchers and other staff, the first obviously being a sense of outrage, not to mention extreme relief upon her safe return. For me, this was also mixed with a large dose of frustration. I am not naïve enough to think societal attitudes and cultural practices change overnight. However, I wish we could find ways to expedite human behavioral changes in response to new scientific knowledge. (Click here for Part I of this story)

Continue reading →

Florida cattle ranches provide more than beef and beautiful views. Cattle share the land with a rich mix of wildlife, including birds like Crested Caracaras, Wild Turkeys, and Sandhill Cranes. Some ranchers are even helping solve Florida’s water management problems. They are working with the state government on controlling the flow of water on ranchlands to make things safer for people and wildlife downstream. Researchers from Archbold Biological Station are helping with the science.  Continue reading →