Dr. Cindy Lewis, director of Keys Marine Laboratory, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the lab.
What does Keys Marine Lab do?
Dr. Lewis said, “We’re located actually on Long Key in the city of Layton, and we provide infrastructure, boats, science staff, sea water system, dorms to academic and researchers at the college level. We are part of the Institute of Oceanography, which is a consortium of 35 different marine organizations around the state of Florida, and we’re actually a satellite campus of the University of South Florida.”
The Ocean Reef Conservation Fund recently gave a grant to the Keys Marine Lab.
Dr. Lewis said, “We applied to Ocean Reef for a grant to continue to support our coral restoration work at the Keys Marine Lab. We have multiple different restoration organizations that use Keys Marine Lab, and so we were awarded $10,000 to help support our restoration work. We’re very grateful.”
There was some work going on with Force Blue in terms of coral restoration.
Dr. Lewis said, “Force Blue is a wonderful organization, Special Ops veterans who have served in the military, in one of the special ops across all the military forces and with a specialty, usually of underwater work. So it was sort of a natural fit for them to be trained as basically scientific divers with I.CARE and learn about coral conservation and restoration. So they spent several days diving and exploring, learning how to out plant corals, and one portion of that is they came to Keys Marine lab with their new veterans that are unfamiliar with this Force Blue initiative, and they learned all about fragmenting the corals that they had collected on previous dives and cutting them up and putting them on pucks and getting them ready for out planting, so they produced basically hundreds of coral. Never before had they had hands on coral like this and then running them through tile saws and band saws and super gluing them to concrete pucks. It was pretty exciting.”
State funding is important for Keys Marine Lab.
Dr. Lewis said, “We have been looking for state funding to support us so that we can, in turn, support our restoration groups. The DEP provided us with two years of funding to support seawater systems so that we could, in turn, allow our restoration partners to use our seawater systems basically free of charge. So it’s an expense they don’t have to budget for, and they can turn their attentions elsewhere. It’s been hugely successful.”
Are there opportunities for people in the public to get involved?
Dr. Lewis said, “Once a year we have an open house where we actually invite all of our restoration partners on site, and so that’s a great opportunity for the public to be able to see everybody all together and how we work collaboratively to do the important work that they’re doing. Certainly opportunities to donate to Keys Marine Lab. On our website, there’s a donate page, and you can donate directly to support our organization and support the activities that we do. Professors bring their students down, so there’s opportunities to support, say, student activities in the form of some sort of a scholarship or stipend for these undergraduate students to come and use the lab with their classes. So there’s lots of opportunities like that.”
How did Dr. Lewis end up in Keys Marine Laboratory?
She said, “I have a very unconventional path. After raising my family, I started diving and saw these wonderful reefs. I went, wow, these are cool. I want to know more. So I decided to go back to school and get my master’s degree at the University of Buffalo. Not a lot of coral reefs in Buffalo, but my advisor was actually coming to the Keys Marine Lab to do her research. So my first experience at Keys Marine Lab was as a master student in 2001 and my life went on from there. I actually did all my dive training in Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, Lake Huron. So there’s wonderful wrecks in the Great Lakes, and that was where I did all my dive training. It’s a lot colder, though.”
The RV Hogarth is a great way to help researchers and education groups.
Dr. Lewis said, “That’s another platform of FIO. We have three vessels, actually, the Hogarth, the Weather Bird and the Western Flyer. They’re available for research and education groups to use for their different activities. The Hogarth is especially wonderful for taking classes and giving them the experience out on the water, on the ocean. They can overnight on it with small groups of I think 12 to 15 is the capacity for a classroom. Or they can stay for the day and do different oceanographic activities out, usually in the Gulf, but they pre position the vessel around the state of Florida, so that all of our different members in the consortium have access to the vessel. Whether it’s an experience at Keys Marine Lab going out on the water and experiencing the Florida Keys, or whether it’s on one of the vessels at FIO, very frequently, it’s a life changing experience for these students who have never had this opportunity, and it’s really opened their eyes to what’s available. Everything you can do to support any one of these restoration organizations is a huge help. We need everybody in the fight to try to save our reefs.”
What about Sargassum?
Dr. Lewis said, “It’s definitely out there, and everybody’s keeping an eye on it. We’re not directly involved with it, but it’s going to be a matter of what direction the wind’s coming from and how close the currents are bringing it to our shorelines. I’m sure it’s going to pile up on our beaches when you don’t want it there.”
What about water temperatures?
Dr. Lewis said, “We’re certainly watching it, as far as our sea surface temperatures, we’re on a bleach watch right now with a little bit of overcast and wind, it’s holding it at that, but that’s also the engine for our hurricanes, and we’re watching our hurricane systems for the season.”
For more information, click here: https://www.fio.usf.edu/keys-marine-lab/