Food source? Water reservoir? Humble abode? Swamp thing? Periphyton is that and lots more.
Zoom in as we speak with world-renown Professor and researcher, Dr. Evelyn Gaiser as she takes us into the startlingly clear depths of the Big Cypress National Preserve and the Everglades National Parks to learn more about this tiny yet vital building block.
“Periphyton: the prolific, perplexing, and prophetic scum of the earth”
“The founders of a food web, regulators of water quality, creators of soil, builders of homes,
reservoirs of water, and indicators of current and historical ecosystem health:
you may begin to wonder what periphyton cannot do!” (quote: NPS)
About our speaker:
Dr. Gaiser is an aquatic ecologist who in her own words ‘studies lakes and wetlands for a living.’
She is the Endowed George Barley Eminent Scholars Chair and Distinguished University Professor of Biological Sciences at the FIU Institute of Environment. Her research is focused on understanding how algae can be used as "sentinels " of the effects of long-term changes in climate and land-use in aquatic ecosystems. While her work focuses on aquatic systems of South Florida, she and her students also conduct international studies to expand findings contextually.
Join us to learn about the humble periphyton, and “the next time you decide to take a walk through a wet marl prairie, make sure to look down and observe the periphyton all around you and consider what your surrounding landscape would look like without this small, yet essential community.” (quote: NPS)
