Category Archives: Ecological Restoration

NASA team finds massive Everglades mangrove damage from Irma. Can it recover?

Last spring, a team of NASA scientists looking at South Florida's dwindling wetlands flew over the Everglades hoping to use aerial 3D imaging and data from the planet's longest orbiting satellites to plot changes. Then Irma hit. In a matter of hours, about 40 percent of the mangroves were damaged or flattened. The massive toll…

A lesson from mating birds: The song gets sweeter over time, a Miami scientist finds

On a dewy summer morning, Karla Rivera-Cáceres, an ornithology researcher at the University of Miami, crouched in her usual workspace –– the tall grasses of Costa Rica’s woodland –– and heard something unusual. Rivera-Cáceres studies bird song, and that day she was listening to the canebrake wren, a brown bird whose bland appearance (it was…

Sea rise is outpacing Everglades restoration — but scientists say there’s a solution

For years, South Florida water managers struggling to reverse the damage done to the Everglades by decades of flood control have done their best to replicate nature, timing the flow of water into marshes with the state’s wet and dry seasons. But now researchers looking at 16 years worth of data say creeping sea rise…

Rare Florida sparrow could vanish this year and more birds could be at risk

The grasshopper sparrow, a tiny Florida prairie bird perched on the verge of extinction for the last decade, may have encountered a final, unconquerable foe: an invasive new disease quickly killing off its young. The disease has spread so rapidly that wildlife managers now fear another endangered sparrow, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow in the…

The Hole in Earth’s Ozone Layer Is Healing

Efforts to heal the hole in Earth's ozone layer over Antarctica appear to be paying off, according to a new, first-of-its-kind study that looked directly at ozone-destroying chemicals in the atmosphere. Earth's ozone layer protects the planet's surface from some of the sun's more harmful rays that can cause cancer and cataracts in humans, and…

Sea turtles overcame hurricane and heat to have decent South Florida nesting season

Green sea turtles, once served in soup with a splash of sherry, overcame a hurricane and another hot summer to produce a record South Florida nesting season. Sea turtle nesting season officially ended Tuesday, with the suspension of rules restricting beach lighting that could disorient newly hatched turtles. For months, thousands of female greens made nighttime crawls…

The Trump administration won’t protect this little lizard. So this group is suing.

A small, shiny, brown lizard with a bright pink tail that lives exclusively on the Florida Keys along narrow strips of shoreline is making a big stink in the nation’s capital. The Center for Biological Diversity on Monday filed a formal notice of its intent to sue the Trump administration for denying protection to the…

New study suggests insect populations have declined by 75% over 3 decades

A new scientific study has found "dramatic" and "alarming" declines in insect populations in areas in Germany, which researchers say could have far-reaching consequences for the world's crop production and natural ecosystems. The study, published on Wednesday in peer-reviewed journal PLOS One has found that, in German nature reserves, flying insect populations have declined by…

The Everglades have always been hit by hurricanes. Thanks to climate change, Irma could be a different matter.

As residents of the Southeast are returning home and assessing the damage left by Hurricane Irma, Florida scientists are anxiously waiting to evaluate the storm’s impact on one of the state’s most valuable — and vulnerable — ecosystems: the Everglades. Already threatened by the continuous progression of sea-level rise — which pumps damaging salt water into…

Feds shouldn’t change Florida panther protections

Someone should tell the rest of Florida’s panthers they can come home. Even though there’s just an estimated 230 Florida panthers still in existence, federal regulators are reconsidering their status as an endangered species. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is studying whether a slight uptick in panther population since 2014 is enough to change…