Twenty-nine graduate students in human geography along with four instructors from the Institute of Geography at the University of Cologne, Germany, recently learned firsthand about important research being conducted at FGCU’s Everglades Wetland Research Park (EWRP) in Naples.
The long-distance field trip, part of a multi-stop Florida tour, included a visit to the EWRP research lab at the Kapnick Center at the Naples Botanical Garden. They also participated in an FGCU-guided tour of Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary east of Naples.
“They had read several recent EWRP research papers prior to coming to the U.S.A., so they were knowledgeable and quite interested in our wetland research,” said EWRP Director William J. Mitsch, Eminent Scholar and Juliet C. Sproul Chair for Southwest Florida Habitat Restoration and Management. “They asked many questions about how humans impact the Everglades and about the Everglades restoration. For most, it was their first visit to Florida.”
The visitors learned about a variety of research projects being done by FGCU faculty and students, some of which use the campus as a living laboratory for science that could have repercussions around the world.
At Corkscrew Swamp, environmental science master’s candidate Andrea Pereyra, who is from Lima, Peru, showed the Germans different wetland habitats and described her research on methane emissions from cypress swamp soils. Her two main study sites are the cypress swamps on FGCU’s campus and those at Corkscrew Swamp.
Established in 2012, the research park provides teaching, research and service opportunities related to wetland, river and coastal science and ecological engineering. Research projects there include: studying wetland plants’ potential to reduce phosphorus pollution in the Everglades; comparing different wetland ecosystems in the Everglades for their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere as well as for their emissions of the greenhouse gas methane; and estimating the importance of mangrove wetlands as buffers for coastal storms in tropical and subtropical regions around the world.
The Kapnick Center also hosts The Bernard and Susan Master Moonlight on the Marsh Distinguished Lecture Series, which begins in January and runs through March. Topics for the 2016 series include climate change, solving the invasive species epidemic and “The Hitchhikers Guide to Global Water Issues.”
- Learn more about the EWRP
- Learn more about FGCU’s programs in Marine & Ecological Sciences
Students from the Institute of Geography at University of Cologne, Germany, learned about different wetland ecosystems at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.