Center for Coastal Ecology -- Research Highlights

In 2004 Center scientists explored technology and the sea as never before.

1. We developed, tested and implemented  a new method for recognizing optical brighteners (an additive to laundry detergent) in natural waters– a powerful tool to demonstrate septic tank pollution.
2. Working with independent divers, we discovered new underwater caverns in the Gulf off Sarasota, possibly the world’s largest.  These sinkholes and caves offer great promise for archaeological, historical, geological, and ecological discoveries.
3. New research in 2004 brings the number of Florida rivers studied by Mote to more than 3 dozen.  Mote has studied more of the state’s tidal rivers than any institution, and in 2004 gained international recognition for its work at a world-wide rivers symposium in Australia.
4. Underwater vegetation in one river, a key to restoring the Florida Everglades, has been the subject of special study by Center scientists.  These species must flourish for river recovery, but have not.  Possible explanations were studied in 2004, including the culture of species at Mote in Sarasota.
5. 2004 also saw Center scientists succeed in using innovative methods to stock the once-common and always-prized bay scallop in natural waters of Charlotte Harbor.
6. Other innovative research included the detection and identification of grouper habitat off Florida’s west coast and in the Keys using a side scan sonar system that “paints” an image of the sea floor
7. The Center also coordinated Mote’s Charlotte Harbor study in 2004, a year of upheaval for Harbor science.  As the year began Mote studies sought to confirm that harbor ecology would resemble that of 2003, a very wet year.  Hurricane Charley and other hurricanes made 2004 even wetter but brought unexpected consequences for the harbor’s ecology.  Mote studies after the hurricane season were conducted under difficult conditions, owing primarily to the destruction of the Field Station on Pine Island, but by October the annual Harbor Conference held at Mote was able to include the first scientific accounts of the hurricanes’ initial impacts.