Dr. Cindy Lewis, the director of Keys Marine Laboratory, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM on Wednesday to talk about the lab.
The open house earlier this month was quite a success.
Lewis said, “We had probably more than 100, 150 visitors to the lab for the two hours there, and they got to interact with eight or 10 different conservation and restoration groups that had their displays up, all these interactive displays, and it was a real success.”
Keys Marine Lab allows researchers to study the only tropical marine ecosystem in the continental United States.
Lewis said, “We’ve had a couple new, new groups that have never been to KML before. One group in particular from the University of Miami, they brought their field class down for a week in December. They were studying marine invertebrates. So they were looking under rocks and everything out in the ocean, looking at crabs and urchins and those kinds of critters. And it was an upper level class that came down. They really enjoyed the facility, and they talked about coming back again next year.”
Some of the species are in peril.
Lewis said, “Some of these smaller critters, particularly the long spine urchin, has been in peril since the 1980s and there’s a lot of aquaculture going on to try to reintroduce them back to the reef. They’re important grazers. So those kind of critters are important. And there are people that study them.
What other research projects have been going on at KML?
Lewis said, “We have a new one that will be coming in another month or two, actually, from New College in Florida. And this is a graduate student working with sharks, shark research, and specifically looking at the toxins and their effects on sharks. This student is also part of the minorities in shark science group. This is a woman who’s beginning her career in shark research, so she’ll be visiting KML for the first time. And we don’t often have people from New College exploring KML, so this will be a first for her and for New College coming to KML.
There are also upgrades going on at the facility.
Lewis said, “We’re in the fundraising mode right now to basically take down our old buildings and put up elevated, storm hardened, resilient buildings so that we can continue the work that we’re doing, and it will also allow us to expand capacity for more students and more researchers. We’ve been exploring state as well as some federal funding, and then we have some philanthropic and private donors who have become involved with KML, excited about our future, and they’re stepping up.”
The mission of the lab technically started back in the 1960s.
Lewis said, “The inception of FiO and the consortium was back in the 60s, although Keys Marine Lab actually came on board in 1991 when the property was purchased from Marine Lab, Marine Orlando, SeaWorld. So to operate as a tourist attraction for people to come in and see some of the different animals on the property, and then Sea World sold it to the state for it to become a Marine Field Station.”
Groups come in to the lab all year long.
Lewis said, “We basically have a revolving door, probably 150 different groups that amounts to more than 800 students and researchers that come through and utilize us. We’ve had a couple groups from as far away as Yale and Harvard doing some first time work at KML, and at the moment, we have a group from University of California, Santa Barbara, on site, doing some work with coral disease transmission. I certainly appreciate the dedication and passion of all of these researchers and the students that are coming along to learn about the marine environment and develop their own passion for it.”
For more information, click here: https://www.fio.usf.edu/keys-marine-lab/