Images

The Getting Building at the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center allowed the center to expand the capabilities of the USGS to include more offices, a large sediment and coral laboratory, core archive space, electronics shop, workshop, and a loading and staging area for field research.

In 1995, the St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center began construction on the second building. This building expanded the capabilities of the USGS to include more offices, a large sediment and coral laboratory, core archive space, electronics shop, workshop, and a loading and staging area for field research.

This historic brick Studebaker Building, originally built in 1925, was chosen as the location for the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center in the late 1980s.

Scientists build a boardwalk to access mangrove forest to sample fish.

Scientists clear a lift net to capture intertidal fish in mangrove forest.

Scientist displays juvenile tarpon captured in a tidal pond.

Scientist releases mangrove diamondback terrapins held briefly for tagging.

A male, white-tailed deer that had recently lost an antler, foraging in the wet
prairie at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Florida.

Sampling fish within the intertidal zone of a mangrove forest requires setting a block net at the interface between forest and river at high tide, then retrieving the net at low tide.  Here researchers await high tide to set the nets seen in the boat. 

Lift nets buried in the forest floor and deployed at high tide permit the estimation of fish density within flooded forests.

Seining for fish in open water necessitates closing the seine quickly to avoid fish escape.  Closing the seine around a pole offshore accomplishes this objective in sampling.

Setting block net across an intertidal rivulet draining a hurricane-derived mudflat.  Net is retrieved at low tide to obtain an estimate of fish catch.  Fish density was found to be greater in waters draining natural tidal forests than in waters from mudflats formed as a result of landfall of a Category 5 hurricane on Cape Sable, Everglades National Park i

Sampling juvenile common snook following passage of Hurricane Wilma October 2005.  Storm surge from hurricane is hypothesized to have facilitated recruitment of this sportfish to presumptive Tarpon Bay nursery grounds in the following 18 months.

Scientists pull a seine net through an intertidal creek to estimate fish abundance.

Mudflats (open water in background) derived via erosion and habitat conversion from former mangrove forests often have a band of mangroves adjacent to the creek bank.  Here a researcher accesses a mudflat at high tide to make measurements.

Seining for fish in open water necessitates closing the seine quickly to avoid fish escape.  Closing the seine around a pole offshore accomplishes this objective in sampling.

Technician processes fish samples brought in from mangroves.

USGS scientist measures water velocity as part of estimating flow from a mangrove forest.

Scientists pull a seine net through a blocked-off section of a man-made ditch to estimate fish abundance.

Scientists pull a seine net through a blocked-off section of a man-made ditch to estimate fish abundance.

USGS SCEP displays juvenile tarpon captured in a poorly-connected tidal pond.