As a way to honor Karen Walker after she retired last year, we asked her former colleagues to share their thoughts with us. Mystery Solver and More by Bill Marquardt Karen Walker is a mystery solver. She has an intense curiosity about how things work and why they appear as they do. When she s
Karen’s research has led to important new insights on climate change and human
Imagine walking into a towering cathedral draped with million-faceted curtains of orange-gold and black, shimmering in the morning sunlight. Then these incredible living tapestries take flight, with a soft rustle from countless wings sweeping the air and billions of tiny butterfly scales drifting do
He has led trips to the Monarch overwintering sites in Mexico since 1981.
Centuries before countries such as the United Arab Emirates and China started building islands, the Calusa Indians living in southwest Florida were piling shells into massive heaps to construct their own water-bound towns. One island in particular, Mound Key, was the capital of the Calusa kingdom
Supported in part by a grant from National Geographic, a new interdisciplinary study led
Researchers have long thought that snail and clam shells found at Caribbean archaeological sites were evidence of “starvation food� eaten in times when other resources were lacking. Now, a University of Florida study suggests these shells may be evidence of children helping with the grocery shopping
middens – mounds of shells and sediment that were once ancient garbage dumps – led
The Sunshine State’s iconic wildlife includes the American alligator, the Florida panther, the scrub jay and the manatee. But some species unique to Florida are less familiar, like the ultra-rare blue calamintha bee. First described in 2011, scientists weren’t sure the bee still existed. The spec
These unique environments led to pockets of specialized plants and animals, such
To pair with the rest of our educational content in each Earth to Florida newsletter, we bring you monthly updates on statewide environmental news. Read on below to see what we found over the past month: 10 Florida Stories to Watch A recent UF study found that a popular herbicide, glyphosate
Building on decades of Everglades restoration efforts led by the South Florida Water
Deep in the forests of Haiti lives the blue-eyed La Hotte glanded frog (Eleutherodactylus glandulifer), which once went 20 years without being observed by scientists. It belongs to a diverse genus from the Caribbean that also includes the much more common coquí frog (Eleutherodactylus coquí), a cult
Photo by chziemke, CC-BY-NC 4.0 DNA analysis led scientists to believe that Caribbean
Perhaps you have worn a string of pearls around your neck, paid for a diver to retrieve what you hope is a lucky shell or recognize these lustrous gems as your birth stone. But have you ever wondered where these iconic minerals come from, what makes a pearl a true pearl, and how a pearl can become a
student majoring in geology and anthropology when he joined a quarry excavation led
I have been working on moths known as Erythrina Stem Borer (or twig borer) since 2010, which turned out to be several similar species with similar biologies found around the world. Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, the moths have become a major horticultural pest in southern California, where Eryth
treatment by pesticides of some on the wounds a week prior to our visit seem to have led
Takeaways from the University of Florida’s 10th annual Climate Communications Summit The way we tell the climate story has the power to transform a feeling of collective overwhelm into one of collective empowerment.  The University of Florida’s 10th annual Climate Communications Summit brought
movement “took on a life of its own,� and within just eight days, public outcry led
