Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog Your mission over the next few weeks: roam Florida’s sandhills and scrub, and photograph everything that blooms or flies. The researchers who need these photos are looking for specific species, but while you’re out there, why not get it all? The sandhills and ridges in our state are biodiversity hotspots. They are ancient coastlines and one-time beach dunes, home to more than a few specialized and endemic species. I’m often surprised by which of my iNaturalist observations turn out to be “species of interest.” Seminole skipper (Hesperia attalus ssp ..read more

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog A moment long awaited has come for The Nature Conservancy and its partners: at least two eastern indigo snakes were born at the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve this year. After seven years of releasing captive-bred indigos here, there is, for the first time, evidence the snakes are reproducing. It’s a major milestone for a snake that had all but disappeared from the Florida panhandle. The Preserve, owned by The Nature Conservancy, covers 6430 acres. It’s a landscape dominated by longleaf pine and wiregrass, and maintained with regular fire ..read more

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog It is ten weeks until the Tallahassee Marathon and so I’ve been hitting the trails…on my bike. For the past two years, my husband has run our city’s half marathon—a race that starts at the capitol building and wraps around Lake Ella, then Cascades, then Doak, before it dumps runners in College Town. This year, he’s leveling up to a full marathon, an undertaking that means that most of his Saturdays are spent running up to fifteen miles.   Before my husband became a runner, we’d spend our weekends walking. With our long-haired dachshund lead ..read more

Click to subscribe to the WFSU Ecology Blog As I write this, frogs from the Caribbean are colonizing Florida. The two most common are the Cuban tree frog and the greenhouse frog; each has become widespread and each takes resources from native frogs and other insectivores. Try as we might to eradicate them, they are numerous and small. Unfortunately, like many invasive species, they may well become a permanent part of our ecosystems. According to newly published research, this isn’t the first time Florida has been invaded by Caribbean frogs. One of Florida’s first frogs, in fact, migrated from ..read more

We look at a tool that tells you which plants host the most caterpillar species in your area and break down the top north Florida natives ..read more

Tall Timbers Research Station studies the family choices of a charismatic cooperative breeding bird– the brown-headed nuthatch ..read more

We head to the Tallahassee Museum to meet a Florida panther and learn about apex predators in north Florida ..read more

Tall Timbers scours north Florida marshes for two fire dependent and very secretive bird species: black and yellow rails ..read more

We head to the Tallahassee Museum to meet a Florida panther and learn about apex predators in north Florida ..read more

Tall Timbers scours north Florida marshes for two fire dependent and very secretive bird species: black and yellow rails ..read more