By Nikki Dix

Participants in Florida Institute of Oceanography’s Marine Field Studies class assisted GTM Research Reserve biologists (yes, us NERRds!) in our annual mangrove monitoring this past May. This is a multi-university intensive marine science course that exposes undergraduate students to each part of the state of Florida. While with the GTM biologists, students broke up into groups and measured mangrove tree height, tree diameter, and percent cover in plots along a transect off the Matanzas River where mangroves have been spreading in recent years due to a lack of hard freezes.

Check out the students’ blog posts here: http://marinefieldstudies2017.blogspot.com

undergraduate students crossing a creek to get to mangrove transects

UNF Professor Kelly Smith with graduate student assistants