Keys Marine Laboratory (KML) welcomed greater than 200 guests to its annual open home on March 1, showcasing the work KML facilitates for coral reef restoration and analysis.
Attendees engaged in hands-on demonstrations, together with lionfish dissection, coral fragging, sponge filtration and guided excursions of seawater programs housing sponge and coral restoration, long-spined sea urchin aquaculture and extra.
“It was a pleasure to welcome everybody to KML’s campus and spotlight our collaborations with native, statewide and nationwide companions,” mentioned Cindy Lewis, director of Keys Marine Laboratory. “Our scientific neighborhood, together with undergraduate and graduate college students, college and researchers, has been integral to KML since we opened 34 years in the past.
“We’re wanting ahead to our annual open home the place we are able to share our distinctive choices with the Keys neighborhood and past, highlighting KML as an unrecognized treasure within the Center Keys that’s making a big influence on the marine ecosystem,” Lewis mentioned.
KML’s crew of 5 scientists led excursions and shared info on the year-round visiting educational undergraduate marine biology and ecology courses, grasp’s and doctoral analysis packages. The laboratory is a hub for quite a lot of initiatives, together with long-term seasonal ciguatera monitoring and sampling, long-term sawfish inhabitants monitoring and tagging, seagrass mattress assessments and restoration, sponge spawning and restoration, lengthy spined urchin aquaculture and develop out, coral spawning and illness analysis, and ocean present monitoring.
Established in 1991, KML operates on 8 acres surrounded by the Florida Keys Nationwide Marine Sanctuary, supporting analysis throughout subtropical/tropical marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Managed by the Florida Institute of Oceanography on the College of South Florida, KML collaborates with a consortium of 33 private and non-private establishments, state and federal businesses and marine analysis organizations, serving practically 800 college students and researchers yearly.
The ability has over 60 temperature-controlled seawater tables and tanks, 4 near-shore analysis vessels, and a crew of administrative, operations and science workers.
The lab is launching a $60 million capital marketing campaign geared toward modernizing and increasing amenities to deal with the evolving environmental challenges dealing with the oceans. This initiative will embrace the development of latest storm-resistant and extra on-site housing, laboratories and lecture rooms.
This yr’s occasion featured 9 companions: Florida Institute of Oceanography, Florida Keys Nationwide Marine Sanctuary, Reef Renewal USA, Coral Restoration Basis, I.CARE, Florida Fish & Wildlife Analysis Institute, REEF, Surfrider Basis Florida Keys and Designer Ecosystems/ReefStarter.