Scientists go to school at sea

By Ron Matus
Special to the Florida State Times


FSU doctoral student Lia Stalder throws the cone-shaped net into the water while fellow student Feng Chen steers the small boat in circles, net in tow.

Two miles into the Gulf of Mexico, some 45 miles southwest of Tallahassee, at least a dozen shrimp boats sit anchored on the horizon while the student researchers gather copapods - tiny animals vital to the Big Bend food web because young fish love to eat them.

Untrained observers might think, at first glance, that copapods resemble the "sea monkeys" suburban kids used to order from comic books. A good squint may bring into focus long antennae, segmented bodies and little tails the bug-like animals use to maneuver.

Twenty minutes later, thanks to skill and luck, the pair have all the copapods they need.

"This is our payback for being in the lab all the time," Stalder says as Chen U-turns back to the FSU Marine Laboratory, a cluster of aqua-colored buildings visible two miles away.

The marine lab is the common point of departure for Stalder, Chen and more than 40 other FSU professors and graduate students currently researching Big Bend ecosystems.

They take advantage of the lab, established in 1968, and the relatively pollution-free water to study everything from copapods' contribution to global warming to the overfishing of black grouper, a favorite among seafood lovers and one of the lifelines anchoring the Big Bend fishing industry.

"A lot of commercially important fish and invertebrate species use the estuaries and sea grass beds at the juvenile stage," said lab director and oceanography Professor Nancy Marcus. "They are really important nursery grounds."

In a semiweekly ritual, Stalder and Chen will separate their catch into sub-samples at the main campus before beginning their research. Feng is studying the success rate of copapod eggs; Stalder, how the animals respond to eutrophication - depletion of oxygen in water that results in part from polluted runoff from the mainland.

Back at the lab, things are quiet. It's April, and research here, near a spit called Turkey Point on the east side of Apalachicola Bay, doesn't heat up until summer does. This summer may be slower than usual, too, because of a long overdue dredging project in the channel leading to the lab. Researchers will use docks in nearby Carrabelle until the $1.2 million project is completed in the fall.

By land the lab squats unassumingly along a desolate, clover-lined stretch of U.S. 98 between Panacea and Carrabelle. Drivers-by see a smattering of blue buildings amidst turkey oaks and scrubby palmettos, and beyond it, the Gulf and Dog Island.

"Contrary to popular myth, we don't fish, play in the sun and drive the boat all day," said assistant director John Hittron, the lab's supervisor. There are boats, laboratories, classrooms, storage tanks for specimens, independent wells, a system for piping in Gulf water and modest weekend quarters for researchers.

The lab rents space to a company called Outdoor Technology, which is doing research to make better saltwater fishing lures. It's also been home for more than 10 years to the Saturday-by-the-Sea program, which has provided thousands of middle school students with up-close learning about coastal environments.

"The idea is to get students interested in the ocean and marine science," Marcus said of the program, which is directed by the College of Arts and Sciences. "It's important to have that hands-on approach. They'd go out in the pontoon boats and get organisms and bring them back to our labs and look at them. They also walk along the shore and look at the different habitats."

Research, however, remains the lab's No. 1 mission.

"It's our field facility," said Professor David Thistle, chair of the oceanography department. Thistle's research focuses on the effects of winter storms on a species of copapod that lives in the sediment on the ocean floor.

Marcus studies the population dynamics of copapods. Biology Professor Mary Ruckelhaus is trying to find out why vital seagrass habitats are in decline. Felicia Coleman and Chris Koenig, also biology professors, have studied grouper populations in the north Gulf since the late '80s. Overfishing has dramatically altered the ratio of female groupers to males, they say, and led them to predict a species "crash" in the very near future.

Some say more research could be done at the lab. Marcus says she'd like to see more coordinated efforts among departments that use it. There's even been some talk of establishing an aquaculture institute that would focus on the further development of salt-water fishes as food sources.

"It's got mega-potential," Hittron said of the lab. But that won't happen, he said, until the departments commit to having researchers there full time. "You cannot expect somebody living in Tallahassee to really use this place."

Thistle said it's more complicated than that.

"To get this additional research would be costly, and no one is offering us more money," he said. "And right now, the facilities do a great job servicing our needs."