Each summer, Mote Marine Laboratory hosts a 10-week program to provide research experiences in marine science to advanced undergraduate students.  This highly-prestigious project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program. Under the supervision of a scientist from Mote, each student designs and completes an independent research project.  Students present the results of their research in a manuscript-style research paper and in an oral presentation at a laboratory-wide research symposium.  In addition, students get the opportunity to participate in many ongoing research projects, attend research seminars, participate in discussion groups on science careers, and go on field trips to local marine science research and education centers.

This year, I mentored REU student Leo Procise from the University of Saint Francis in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Leo was one of the core members of the purse seine survey crew and his independent research project was titled “An Investigation of the Differences Between Trimmed and Untrimmed Mangroves in Sarasota Bay: An Essential Habitat with Respect to Several Abiotic and Biotic Factors.” Residents with waterfront property have the option of trimming their mangrove trees to a minimum height of six feet. Leo investigated whether trimming of the mangroves affects the average size of individual fish or the composition of the fish community living among the trees’ roots. His research showed that in both 2004 and 2005, the average density of fish (number of fish caught per deployment of our purse seine net) living among trimmed mangroves was lower than that found among untrimmed mangroves (Figure 1). Unfortunately, as described above, the severe red tide event that persisted throughout most of 2005 in Sarasota Bay caused dramatic changes to the fish community. Because the red tide appeared to have a greater effect on the fish community than did trimming of the mangroves, data for the two years could not be combined, which limited the power of the statistical tests used. So even though the differences were large in both years, they were not statistically different. However, these results may be biologically significant and additional sampling should result in statistical significance.