For the past decade Hygrophila polysperma — a southern Asian plant known as “hygrophila” for short — has been taking over the ecological niche left when hydrilla was eradicated from waterways, said Jim Cuda, a UF associate professor of entomology. It’s now a significant problem in South and Central Florida.

Like hydrilla, hygrophila (“high-GRAW-fill-uh”) was sold as an aquarium plant, got into Florida waters decades ago and survived. But the similarities end there.

Hydrilla is strictly a water weed, and can be controlled with herbicides, hungry grass carp or mechanical harvesting. Hygrophila can grow fully submerged or up on river banks. Herbicides aren’t very effective, grass carp don’t like it, and mechanical harvesting breaks its stems into tiny pieces capable of spawning new plants.

Given that scenario, Cuda and colleagues with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences are looking for natural enemies that attack the plant on its home turf in India.

‘There aren’t any good, cost-effective management options for hygrophila,” Cuda said. “That’s why there’s interest in biological control.”

Last fall, Cuda and entomology graduate student Abhishek Mukherjee made a collecting trip to several Indian states, described in an article published in the spring issue of Aquatics, journal of the Florida Aquatic Plant Management Society.

The researchers found evidence of at least one insect Mukherjee hopes to capture on a return trip this summer. They also collected samples of wild hygrophila that are being genetically analyzed to determine if they’re identical to plants found in Florida.

If so, that would mean insects and diseases found in the same parts of India would be likely to attack the Florida hygrophila. If not, the researchers may keep trying to pinpoint the original home of Florida hygrophila and seek enemies there.

The UF team — which includes Cuda, Mukherjee and Bill Overholt, also a UF associate professor of entomology — recently discovered that the larvae of a native moth species will feed on hygrophila.

The moth has no value as a biological control agent because it isn’t host-specific — the larvae attack more than 60 plants — and is unlikely to put a dent in hygrophila populations. But it can be a great research tool, enabling researchers to find out if hygrophila can survive defoliation, Cuda said.

Hygrophila closely resembles native alligatorweed, he said. Residents who think they’ve found a patch should not try to destroy it, but instead contact their county extension office, which can be found at www.solutionsforyourlife.com.

In the United States, hygrophila is currently growing wild only in Florida and Texas. It’s been officially confirmed in 10 Florida counties, though Cuda suspects it’s present in at least 20. Previous research indicates the weed can survive cold climates, and could potentially spread as far as hydrilla did — from Delaware to Florida, all along the Gulf Coast, and north to Washington state.

In Texas, hygrophila has already become established in two lakes and a river system, said Marcos De Jesus, a state fisheries biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. But right now, the population is small and other invasive aquatic weeds take priority.

“The money goes into chemical control or mechanical removal of these other species and hygrophila hasn’t spread enough to warrant a lot of attention,” he said.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Vividly colorful giant clams officially called tridacnids decorate many an upscale aquarium. But now experts say they boast an exterior beauty that masks an ugly truth: their potential for carrying foreign diseases.

In findings that may impact the reef clam industry as well as international trade, a University of Florida veterinary pathologist recently discovered Perkinsus olseni, an internationally reportable foreign pathogen, in aquacultured clams imported from Vietnam.

While not believed to be a threat to human health or other reef aquarium species, the pathogen’s presence concerns scientists as well as aquaculture industry representatives and points out the largely unregulated environment in which the importation of aquacultured reef clams from Asia occurs.

“I had 30 clams in my lab as part of a student research project,” said Barbara Sheppard, a clinical associate professor of pathology at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine. “Then they started looking sickly, and within four months, all of them were dead.”

As a pathologist, Sheppard was intrigued. She began investigating the cause of death by freezing tissues, putting them into formalin and conducting histopathology and DNA tests in her laboratory. Her findings, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, showed the presence of Perkinsus olseni along with a new species of Perkinsus that has yet to be characterized.

“This is an important finding,” said Ralph Elston, president of AquaTechnics, a Carlsborg, Wash.-based company that provides veterinary, laboratory and environmental assessment services to the shellfish industry. “It indicates the potential risk of the spread of animal disease when health monitoring is not in place to control such risks.”

Elston added that further research is needed to evaluate the distribution of previously unknown species of Perkinsus in Florida.

Giant clams are the largest bivalves in the world. Their range stretches across the Indo-Pacific region from the eastern coast of Africa in the west to the South Pacific in the east, according to the United Nations Environment Program’s World Conservation Monitoring Center. These clams represent an increasingly large proportion of the live invertebrates imported to become aquarium specimens. As a result of overexploitation, all species of giant clams are included in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, an international agreement between governments that aims to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

Based on CITES data from 1993-2001, Vietnam has dominated the export of live giant clams since 1998. The United States and Europe are the main importers, and captive bred, or aquacultured, clams represent only about a third of the nearly 1 million tridacnids traded worldwide.

Sheppard is now collaborating with the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, the Maryland Department of Agriculture and Anita Wright, a Perkinsus researcher and associate professor at UF, to further characterize the new exotic species of Perkinsus that Sheppard discovered in her clam colony.

“This is not a zoonotic disease, transmissible to people,” Sheppard said. “No one is going to get sick from this, as far as we know. The problem here is economic and international trade. We know that Perkinsus is a pathogen of aquatic shellfish, and the reason it is so important is that it makes animals very vulnerable to dying when the weather gets hot or when they get stressed in some other way.”

She added that a major pathogen known as Perkinsus marinus is already associated with the depletion of major oyster stocks on the Atlantic coast.

“It’s indigenous; you can’t avoid it, and we know that particular pathogen is already economically devastating to our shellfish industries,” Sheppard said. “They don’t want this Pacific version of Perkinsus (olseni) to be transported here.”

Although the infected clams were found in Florida, tridacnids are imported and distributed to hobbyists throughout the United States. Sheppard’s findings suggest that almost certainly clams infected with Perkinsus olseni and the new Perkinsus species have made their way into consumer aquariums throughout the United States, she said.

“This is a great example of why you should never release an aquarium animal anywhere, under any circumstances,” said Ruth Francis-Floyd, director of UF’s Aquatic Animal Health Program. Aquarium owners seeking an aquatic veterinarian may reference the AquaVets Web site at www.aquavetmed.info/.

The ornamental aquarium trade operates globally with very few restrictions to transport product as quickly as possible, said Craig Watson, director of UF’s Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin.

“There are probably 3,000 species involved, and no one species has the value to justify the cost of a quarantine facility big enough to handle everything,” Watson said.

Members of the clam aquaculture industry as well as the oyster industry are aware of the recent Perkinsus olseni findings and are trying to respond, he added.

Watson said he is working with Florida aquaculture representatives who “really want to do the right thing” and added that his laboratory has proposed a voluntary protocol involving testing and quarantine procedures.

“The cost of doing this, however, is significant,” he said. “The ultimate goal would be to start a Perkinsus-free aquaculture industry in the United States where baby clams that have never been exposed to the disease are produced.”

John Richard Stepp, an associate professor of anthropology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, presents his findings this week in an artistically displayed scientific exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History as part of The Center for Biodiversity and Conservation’s Thirteenth Annual Symposium in New York. The symposium opens Wednesday and continues through Saturday.

Stepp and his anthropology and ecology graduate students compiled data sets globally and regionally to investigate the relationship between biological and cultural diversity. By analyzing data on human and floral diversity, Stepp found a positive correlation between the number of different plant species and the number of different types of human cultural groups.

“This research shows you can’t isolate biodiversity from cultural diversity, which is important to consider when creating future conservation plans,” Stepp said.

To effectively convey the data to the conference’s audience of policymakers, United Nations representatives and others in a visually compelling manner required the marriage of science and art. Stepp turned to the UF College of Fine Arts graphic design program, MINT, in the school of art and art history for assistance in creating 13 large maps. Each map uses colors and shapes to dynamically render a different data set.

The maps feature some of the regions showing greatest diversity, including Mesoamerica, the Amazon-Andean slope, the greater Himalayas, equatorial Africa, greater Southeast Asia/Melanesia. Stepp said sloping mountainous tropical areas are significant regions for diversity because the range of habitats presented in these areas creates different opportunities for cultural adaptations.

“Sometimes it appears humans have maintained or even created biodiversity,” Stepp said. “Human activity has created different habitats, which can allow for increased biodiversity.”

Building on research published in 2005 in the journal Mountain Research and Development, Stepp’s study used language as one example of cultural diversity.

New Guinea alone contains almost 10 percent of the world’s languages and some of the highest biodiversity in the world, he said.

“Each language represents a culture that is an experiment in what it means to be human,” Stepp said. “Coded within language is sophisticated knowledge of management and interaction with the environment.”

Stepp’s research illustrates that the single biggest predictor of how many languages are spoken in any given area is how many plant species exist in that area. The reverse is also true, he said. Biological diversity and human diversity may share a similar fate. About half of the world’s approximately 7,000 languages are endangered, he said.

Using a geographic information system, Stepp’s research group spatially correlated a number of data sets including all of the world’s languages. The researchers were able to compare this with a sophisticated database containing the distribution of the world’s vascular plant species developed by a team at the University of Bonn led by Wilhelm Barthlott. Other data used were global energy consumption patterns, road networks, population density, bioproductivity, evapotransipration, rainfall and slope. The work is part of an ongoing project funded by The Christensen Fund, based in Palo Alto, Calif.

The students in MINT primarily used Adobe Illustrator to make visual sense of the numbers. MINT director and graphic design assistant professor Connie Hwang said that tool was only one part of the project.

“It’s the innovative and brilliant minds of the students that made this project extraordinary and successful,” she said.

During the project’s three-month timeline during fall 2007, 11 MINT designers tackled the challenge of how to hold the public’s interest while they viewed one map after another. Four lead designers were in charge at the refinement stage. Designer Mason Greenewald carried the project through the production stage.

It was the first time MINT, which takes jobs for clients on and off the UF campus, had worked on a project for display in a national museum.

“Everyone was really interested in working with something informational and environmental, not only for the design, but also for its educational content and its destiny to be shown in the context of a museum for everyone to see,” Hwang said. “Not only did we consider how we could connect with and attract the general public but also how we could highlight the intellectual knowledge and research of the client.”

Stepp said the outcome is fresh and new, not gender, race, or age specific, and easy to digest and comprehend.

“The end result of the project is absolutely stunning, interesting and mesmerizing,” he said. “The MINT designers transformed simple scientific data into something intriguing and beautiful, something that will live in viewer’s mind for a long time.”

In tests measuring how termites damage the thermal properties or insulation in homes and other buildings, three types of widely used construction materials — 2-by-4 boards, five-ply plywood and foam board insulation — were exposed to the pest for eight weeks by entomologists at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

“All three building construction materials were damaged by termites, but the pest caused more damage to insulation than to either the wooden 2-by-4 or plywood samples,” said Phil Koehler, an entomology professor who supervised the study by graduate student Cynthia Tucker and research associate Roberto Pereira. Their findings will be published in the April issue of the journal Sociobiology.

The thermal imaging tests, which measured heat transfer through the three building materials, focused on damage caused by a species of subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes, that’s well known in North America.

Tucker, who is completing work on her doctoral degree in entomology at UF’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said they were surprised to find that rigid foam board insulation was most heavily damaged by termites, with 12 percent of the material being removed by termites in eight weeks, causing a 27 percent loss in insulation values.

“Most types of insulation are composed of plastic that’s not a source of food for termites, but the soft texture of insulation allows termites to build extensive tunnels and consume paper that lines the outside surface,” Tucker said. “In fact, the insulation materials are an almost ideal habitat because they protect the pest from cold temperatures.”

She said tests showed that plywood was the most resistant to heat flow, but once termites damaged the plywood, temperature changes were significant. After termites ate just 3.1 percent of the wood, insulation values dropped 74 percent.

When the pest attacked 2-by-4 boards, consuming 6.7 percent of the wood by tunneling along the fibers and within softer spring wood, there was a 35 percent drop in insulation values.

“Until recently, changes in the thermal properties of a structure caused by termites — especially for buildings in areas where temperature extremes require lots of heating or air conditioning — have been overlooked,” Tucker said.

Termite damage has been most commonly thought of in terms of weakening structures, making infested areas prone to collapse, she said. Water damage is also linked to these termites because they bring moisture up from the soil into structures.

Pereira said homeowners should make sure a high quality pre-construction termite treatment is done and a termite-protection contract is maintained. Once termites damage the structure, killing the pest will not correct the damage or restore insulation properties.

D.R. Sapp, president of Florida Pest Control and Chemical Co. in Gainesville, said the research provides valuable information that many homeowners overlook.

Insulation can be a “termite turnpike” because the foam material has a low density and holds moisture, he said, making it easy for the pest to quickly tunnel through buildings and attack wood.

“Homeowners always are concerned about anything that can affect the value of their homes, especially now when there is a downturn in the housing market,” Sapp said.

The year before, West Nile virus unexpectedly struck nearly 3,000 people in Colorado, killing more than 60. Similar outbreaks seemed virtually inevitable throughout the country for the next year — especially in Florida, where the mosquito and bird-borne disease seemed inevitable.

Even after months of preparation, states such as California, Arizona and Texas suffered heavy casualties in 2004. In Florida, however, four major hurricanes and a tropical storm had splattered mosquito and bird populations across the state, leaving the virus no means of reproducing and spreading.

Meteorological challenges continued to hold the virus at bay for the next three years — another heavy hurricane season followed by two years of drought. But this year, the weather could actually be “normal,” and University of Florida entomologists could think of no scarier proposition.

Already this season, high levels of eastern equine encephalitis virus have been documented in parts of Central Florida. These early outbreaks may not bode well for the upcoming mosquito season.

“Depending on the summer rainfall patterns, conditions in Florida could be perfect for us to finally be hit by some of the diseases we’ve been narrowly ducking the last few years,” said Jonathan Day, professor of medical entomology at UF’s Medical Entomology Laboratory in Vero Beach, part of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “We’re watching very closely so we know what to prepare for.”

As Day outlines in a paper published in this month’s Journal of Medical Entomology, there is a distinct chain of events that leads to a Colorado-like epidemic, and that chain begins in early January with specific rainfall, drought and temperature patterns.

For example, a series of droughts such as those reported in peninsular Florida during the last two years, could isolate mosquitoes into small areas of moisture-rich land. During that time, the confined mosquito population interacts with the birds that are attracted to the fresh water. The birds and mosquitoes become a captive audience and cycle any virus that is trapped in that space with them.

When rains return, the now infected mosquito population would then be set free to spread the disease to other birds and animals, including humans, on which they feed.

There are currently more than 560 meteorological recording stations across Florida carefully monitoring the Sunshine State’s weather patterns.

Many in the state may already be feeling the buzzing pests’ bites, but the information gathered at the recording stations and by many other experts across the state allow an analysis of what the current conditions may mean for July — the bloom of mosquito season and potentially the most dangerous time for arboviral diseases.

Of course, mosquito-borne diseases have probably been a problem since humans first inhabited the state of Florida 15,000 years ago. However, the increasing density of the human population in Florida makes the problem far more potent, Day says.

For example, widespread outbreaks of St. Louis encephalitis virus struck peninsular Florida in 1977, with 110 human cases. Thirteen years later, it struck again with 226 cases.

In his paper, Day points out how both outbreaks followed strikingly similar rainfall and drought patterns, patterns that can be tracked and are predictive of future mosquito-borne disease outbreaks.

But, of course, the crystal ball isn’t only focused on weather patterns. Knowing which mosquito species are dangerous is also vitally important.

“The type of mosquito not only tells us what kind of disease we could be dealing with, but also when and how to take precautions,” said Roxanne Rutledge Connelly, a UF entomologist who helps teach one of the most recognized courses in identifying mosquitoes in the world.

For example, if the potentially dangerous mosquito population is the Asian tiger mosquito — a relatively new invasive species to the United States known for spreading dengue fever in Hawaii and Southeast Asia — then the game is completely different than that for the vast majority of other mosquito species.

The Asian tiger mosquito not only feeds in bright sunlight, but it needs significantly less water to breed than most of its American cousins. So, control and prevention programs must consider these issues.

“We have more ability now than ever before for predicting these outbreaks and doing something about them before they get out of hand,” Day said. “There are vaccinations, animal control measures and insecticides. The truth is that our best tool is still general public awareness; but it’s the most difficult tool of all to put into use, because it takes the most time, effort and preparedness.”

See also: Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory’s Encephalitis Information System.

A University of Florida study suggests that repeatedly using large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer can ignite a population explosion of Southern chinch bugs — the No. 1 insect pest of St. Augustinegrass, the state’s most popular turfgrass.

The findings were presented in Jacksonville today at an Entomological Society of America meeting.

“Everything in moderation,” said Eileen Buss, an associate professor of entomology with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “When we try to overly manage a natural system we get the balance out of whack.”

UF turfgrass experts advise homeowners to use no more than 1 pound of slow-release nitrogen fertilizer per 1,000 square feet of lawn, a recommendation found in the document “St. Augustinegrass for Florida Lawns,” available at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/LH010.

In the study, Southern chinch bugs produced the most eggs on St. Augustinegrass fed the equivalent of 2 pounds nitrogen per 1,000 square feet per month.

That rate is a worst-case scenario, she said, but not unrealistic because people sometimes deliberately overfertilize in their zest to have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood.

That more-is-better approach has become riskier in the past five years because Southern chinch bugs in Citrus, Escambia, Flagler, Hillsborough, Lake, Orange and Volusia counties have developed resistance to pyrethroids, the class of pesticides commonly used to control the insects, Buss said.

Resistant chinch bugs may be able to survive exposure to bifenthrin, a pyrethroid that is the top choice for Southern chinch bug control in Florida. However, pyrethroids should still perform well against nonresistant populations of Southern chinch bugs.

Buss co-authored the study with turfgrass specialist Laurie Trenholm, an associate professor of environmental horticulture, and doctor of plant medicine student Megan Gilbert.

Conducted at a UF research facility in Citra, it involved chinch bugs raised on St. Augustinegrass that received nitrogen fertilizer at one of five rates, equivalent to 0, 0.5, 1, 2 or 4 pounds of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet of turf, applied monthly.

The chinch bugs were paired to reproduce, each pair placed in a cage containing St. Augustinegrass fertilized at the same rate the insects previously experienced. The results showed females raised on grass given 0 or 0.5 pounds nitrogen produced 15 to 20 eggs per week; those on grass given 1 or 2 pounds produced 25 to 35. Females on grass given 4 pounds briefly produced 45 eggs per week, then declined to 20.

Adult female Southern chinch bugs live about two months, and produce eggs the entire time.

Buss said female chinch bugs produce more eggs on healthy St. Augustinegrass, which accounts for the differences in egg production. Future research may examine the role of the nutrients phosphorus and potassium in chinch bug population growth, and the possibility that overfertilization may reduce turfgrass resistance to chinch bugs.

Though this study was conducted in a laboratory rather than a yard, Buss says the results are relevant to homeowners. Southern chinch bugs don’t move around much, staying in the same area unless they can’t find food.

And with the insects producing a new generation every four to six weeks during Florida summers, increased egg-laying could lead to rapid population growth in overfed lawns.

Buss said she’s not sure how applicable the results are in other Gulf Coast states where St. Augustinegrass is commonly grown, due to environmental differences.

Studies on other chinch bug species elsewhere in the United States show that it’s common for nitrogen fertilizer to boost egg production, said chinch bug expert Fred Baxendale, an entomology professor with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“What Dr. Buss is seeing is in line with prior research,” he said. “I think her research is interesting, I think it’s valid and it needs to be taken further.”

“Our objective was to understand whether beach sand could pose a health risk to beachgoers,” said Tonya D. Bonilla, a doctoral student in the UF College of Veterinary Medicine’s department of infectious diseases and pathology who studied three South Florida beaches over a two-year period to see whether human health risks appear to increase based on the level of sand exposure.

“What we found was that there was no increased health risk due to exposure to sand on the upper beach,” Bonilla said. “However, the longer the period of time people spent in the water and in the wet sand, the higher the probability that they would experience some gastrointestinal illness.”

Bonilla’s research was conducted at Fort Lauderdale Beach, Hollywood Beach and Hobie Beach. There were 882 respondents who participated in the pilot epidemiological study and 609 who participated in the control group.

Beachgoers were made aware of the study and, if willing to participate, were given a survey form to complete four days after their beach visit. The questionnaire focused on type and duration of beach activity and inquired whether participants became ill during the four days after the beach visit. The control group consisted of people randomly chosen from the general population who had not visited a beach in at least nine days.

Jay M. Fleisher, an associate professor in the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Nova Southeastern University, analyzed the epidemiological data collected in the study.

“Our findings suggest that there is an increased risk of acquiring gastroenteritis the longer a bather either sits in the wet sand or stays in the water,” Fleisher said. “The probability that an individual will become sick increases over expected non-exposure rates from six out of 1,000 people for a 10-minute exposure to approximately 12 out of 100 people for a two-hour stay in the wet sand.

“For exposure to water, these rates increase from seven out of 1,000 people affected over expected non-exposure rates for a 10-minute stay to approximately seven out of 100 people exposed for a 70-minute stay,” Fleisher added. “Both show a clear dose-response relationship in risk with increasing time of exposure. These estimates of increased risk might seem small, but when one considers how many people use this beach in the course of a year, we can end up with a substantial public health problem.”

While fecal indicator levels in the near-shore waters of South Florida’s recreational beaches are routinely monitored, sand samples from the surf zone — the wet sand — and the upper beach are not. Beach sand may become contaminated by gull droppings and other sources of fecal-derived organisms that then diffuse into wet sand and water, said Bonilla, whose research was published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. Her work, part of her master’s thesis work at Nova Southeastern University, was funded by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. She has continued her water-quality work at UF, where she is pursuing her doctoral degree.

Her former mentor, Andrew Rogerson, a professor of biology who is now at Marshall University in West Virginia, is a study co-author. Their findings suggest water is an important factor for pathogen transmission.

“At this point, we don’t know whether the increased health risk is due to pathogen exposure,” Bonilla said. “To really understand this, a more comprehensive and targeted epidemiological approach is needed.”

Helena Solo-Gabriele, a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Miami and a collaborator in the National Science Foundation’s Oceans and Human Health Center, is working on understanding how fecal indicator levels correlate with pathogen levels in her own research. Her work primarily focuses on environmental measurements, specifically of microbial indicators in water.

In addition to evaluating the potential human health effects of microbes from beach sands, Bonilla’s paper provides new information concerning the reservoirs and sources of fecal indicator bacteria, Solo-Gabriele said.

“This study emphasizes that beach sands serve as the most significant reservoir of fecal indicator bacteria, and shows that the situation is not isolated to one specific beach, but can be widespread across regions,” she said. “Bonilla and her collaborators provide a mechanistic explanation for the potential spread of fecal indicator bacteria through gull droppings and subsequent distribution through natural diffusion in the environment, as well as by people walking on the beach. The suggestion of an association between fecal indicator levels in sand and illness rates among humans is very significant and points to the need to conduct more comprehensive studies of beach sand.”

However, ripping out a few mangroves and replacing them with shrimp farms, an important local industry, doesn’t necessarily have to reduce the plants’ power to blunt tsunamis. And in that observation lies a fresh, quantitative approach to how policy makers can protect the environment and allow growth and development that improves local residents’ lives.

So says a University of Florida zoologist and co-author of a paper on the topic set to appear this week in the journal Science.

Brian Silliman, a UF assistant professor of zoology, said governments and managers worldwide are leaning toward a system known as “ecosystem-based management” to achieve environmental protection goals. Contrasting traditional techniques that focus on single species, ecosystem-based management seeks to conserve not only species but also habitats and the services they provide to humans by conserving entire ecosystems.

Under ecosystem-based management, policy makers in Thailand would not only take into account its mangroves, but also the needs of shrimp farmers, threats from ocean pollution, potential damage from storms, and other factors, Silliman said.

Shrimp farming in Thailand has led to destruction of thousands of acres of mangroves and is a major environmental issue in Asia. In many areas, mangroves no longer exist, leaving shoreline towns and cities unprotected from tsunamis. To increase mangroves’ protective services, governments must restore or conserve them.

For Silliman and his colleagues, the question was, can some mangroves be converted to shrimp farms without losing too much storm buffering?

Silliman said that managers might make a common assumption: The amount of benefits from a natural amenity — whether sea grass, forests or mangroves — are linked directly to its
size. So, more mangroves would mean proportionally more storm surge protection, more habitat for juvenile fish and more pollution-filtering capacity.

That assumption inevitably leads to either-or conclusions about environmental protection and development, Silliman said. If more mangroves always means more environmental benefits, then none should be destroyed.

The main point of the Science paper is that assumption and its inevitable conclusion are not always right and should be questioned.

Ecologists have long understood that species reach thresholds at which their environmental benefits to humans are greatest, and saturation points at which those benefits trail off, Silliman said. In other words, the relationship between the amount of services provided by an ecosystem and the area of that ecosystem is not a straight line.

When the authors reviewed studies of the mangroves and how they buffer tsunamis, it quickly became clear that the mangroves don’t offer much protection until they cover a certain critical area, Silliman said. And their protection doesn’t get much better after this area reaches a certain, “saturation” size compared to the size of the vulnerable coast they shelter.

Merging this ecological knowledge and economic valuation theory to create a technique useful in many other scenarios, the researchers assigned dollar values to the mangroves’ protective powers, and then compared those values to the dollars earned from shrimp farming. Their conclusion: Small losses of between 10 and 20 percent of mangroves, where massive expanses of mangroves already exist, are outweighed by gains by shrimp farmers.

In other words, as long as farmers don’t destroy too many of the plants, they can uproot some mangroves, build shrimp ponds and make money – and the remaining mangroves will still protect the shoreline from tsunami storm surges.

“It makes intuitive sense when you say, ‘both sides can benefit,’ but the important quantitative question is, ‘How much land can mangroves give up and not lose that most important service of protection against tsunamis,’” Silliman said. “We provide a technique to answer that question based on combining some basic principles of ecology and economics.”

That said, Silliman noted that the argument assumes there are plenty of mangroves. If most have already been destroyed as is the case in most areas, then restoration, not shrimp farming, is essential, he said. The research was funded by the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, and the Packard Foundation, which encourages interdisciplinary research. The authors relied on published studies as part the center’s goal of tying together seemingly unrelated research to find new approaches to solving problems.

In a portent of today’s global warming, fossilized leaves tell the story of a carbon dioxide induced warm-up at the end of the Miocene age that melted much of the polar icecaps and led to the spread of animals that thrive in the wide open spaces, such as horses, camels and other grazers, said David Dilcher, a UF paleobotanist and one of the study’s authors.

“Our findings clearly demonstrate that past climate changes were tied to carbon dioxide fluctuations in the atmosphere, which influenced the major vegetation patterns occurring on earth and in turn affected the evolution of major animal groups,” Dilcher said.

The work by Dilcher, Wolfram Kurschner, a paleobotanist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and Zlatko Kvacek, a paleobotanist at Charles University in the Czech Republic, appears in a paper published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The relevance for today is that the Antarctic ice sheets are reversing again,” said Dilcher, who works at the Florida Museum of Natural History. “As carbon dioxide and other gasses increase in the atmosphere, we’re emerging from a cooler or icehouse-type period into a greenhouse-type period with ice-free poles. The Earth is gradually going to undergo major changes just as we saw major changes in the upper Miocene Epoch.”

The Miocene Epoch is characterized by weather extremes, from the Earth plunging into its present “icehouse” state with glaciers at the north and south poles to periods of tropical temperatures.

While use of fossil fuels has been blamed for today’s global warming, the likely source of this ancient episode was carbon dioxide belched from widespread volcanic eruptions in the Columbia River Flood Basalt region of the United States and in Central Europe, Dilcher said.

The researchers were able to track the fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by taking fossilized leaves and measuring the number of stoma or small pores, through which carbon dioxide is taken in and oxygen released during photosynthesis. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the fewer stomata there are on the undersides of leaves.

Using three different species of leaves from the Charles University collection, with most of the specimens collected from the brown-coal basins in the Czech Republic, the researchers found a correlation between the number of stoma in the leaves and carbon dioxide levels in the air with climate patterns over time. The carbon dioxide fluctuations coincided with temperature changes recorded in the ocean record — as measured by isotope concentrations in the shells of marine organisms — which, in turn, corresponded with drastic changes in plant and animal life, Dilcher said.

“It was at the very end of the Miocene Age that modern vegetation emerges in the world, and we find that atmospheric carbon dioxide was the forcing factor,” he said.

Fluctuating levels of carbon dioxide combined with reduced available moisture, in the rain shadow of the rising Rocky Mountains, pressured the forest vegetation and photosynthesis of some plants to be altered. As a result, the closed forests of palm and bamboo trees that had dominated interior North America gave way first to savannas and open woodlands and later to grasslands, which also sprouted up across the ocean around the eastern Mediterranean, Dilcher said. These changes occurred gradually, over a few thousand to millions of years, he said.

The Great Plains began to form, leading to a diverse mix of large hoofed herbivores such as extinct species of horses, camels, rhinoceroses and elephants that fed on the lush grasses, he said.

“Preliminary data suggest that this pattern of elevated ungulate diversity is a global phenomenon, and therefore a global driving force such as climate change is the most likely explanation,” he said.

While carbon dioxide levels fluctuated between 370 and 600 parts per million during the Miocene Epoch, today’s levels are at about 375 parts per million, Dilcher said.

“We are in a period of accelerated climate change that is quite unlike anything that we have seen in the fossil record,” he said. “When carbon dioxide levels go up to 400 and then on to 500 parts per million, we will be at the same point that we were in the Miocene age when the poles were ice-free.”

The findings could mean some homeowners in green communities don’t know enough about how to reduce their environmental impact, said Mark Hostetler, an associate professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

Green communities are designed to have less environmental impact than traditional housing developments. The homes often feature energy-saving appliances, extensive insulation and yards with native plants; common areas typically include lots of green space and drainage systems that minimize stormwater runoff.

People moving into green developments may simply be interested in open space, energy efficient homes or the chance to see wildlife, Hostetler said, and may not bring with them a strong commitment to environmental issues.

“You have to engage the people that live in these communities,” Hostetler said. “It’s a combination of things, of not only education, raising awareness, but understanding the barriers that everyday people have, to make it easier for them to involve themselves in sustainable type of living.”

In the studies, Hostetler and graduate student Krystal Noiseux queried new homeowners in two pairs of Central Florida communities. Each pair consisted of a green housing development and a traditional one of similar size, home value and location.

The researchers mailed questionnaires to more than 900 households in total, of which 340 responded. The questionnaires were sent in June 2006 and mailed only to residents who bought their homes in the past two years.

Residents of both types of communities were concerned with indoor air quality, green space and energy efficiency, all of which are usually priorities in green developments.

But residents of both types of communities had only a moderate- to low-level commitment to environmental issues, responses showed. The questionnaire contained a total of 40 questions about environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviors.

Those results are significant, Hostetler said, because all homeowners can influence their own environmental impact. Day-to-day choices such as setting the thermostat, watering the lawn or choosing plants for the yard influence a household’s resource consumption. The studies indicate that residents of green communities don’t necessarily conserve resources better than residents of traditional developments.

He believes that in any community, green or traditional, there’s a small percentage of people who’d go all-out to live sustainably, and another group who’d refuse to inconvenience themselves in the least.

The rest — perhaps 80 to 90 percent, by his estimate — are willing to reduce their resource consumption but may not understand how. For example, using ceiling fans rather than an air conditioner may save hundreds of dollars per year, but a homeowner may not think to do it.

It’s hard to say how much the UF findings can be generalized to other parts of the country; the studies need to be replicated elsewhere, Hostetler said. However, the results do indicate that developers of green communities should thoroughly educate home buyers.

What’s certain is that home buyers — and the general public — will be hearing more about green homes and communities, said Hal Knowles, a consultant for UF’s Program for Resource Efficient Communities, part of the Florida Cooperative Extension Service.

Green construction became popular in the United States during the 1990s, following the formation of the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable building practices and offers a widely recognized certification program, Knowles said.

Green certification can be an important marketing tool, said Nancy Richardson, director of Audubon International’s Audubon Signature Programs, which certify new developments.

“A developer is looking for something that makes them unique in the marketplace,” Richardson said. “There’s no doubt that (certification) does help.”

But some environmentalists debate which standards are needed, Hostetler said.

“There is much discussion about the bar being set too low in these certifications and it is sometimes too easy being green,” he said.

The unusual discovery of well-preserved fossils in a water-filled sinkhole called a blue hole revealed the bones of landlubbing crocodiles and tortoises that did not survive human encroachment, said David Steadman, a UF ornithologist and the lead author of a paper published this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The climate and environmental conditions back then weren’t much different from those of today,” said Steadman, who works at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus. “The big difference is us. When people got to the island, there was probably nothing easier to hunt than tortoises so they cooked and ate them. And they got rid of the crocodiles because it’s tough to have kids playing at the edge of the village where there are terrestrial crocodiles running around.”

The first entire fossilized skeletons of a tortoise and a crocodile found anywhere in the West Indies were uncovered from Sawmill Sink on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, along with bones of a lizard, snakes, bats and 25 species of birds, as well as abundant plant fossils.

Radiocarbon analyses date the bones at between 1,000 and 4,200 years old with the youngest fossil being that of a human tibia, he said. The fossils are the best preserved of any ever found in the Bahamas because of their unusual location in the deep saltwater layer of the sinkhole that contains no oxygen, which normally would feed the bacteria and fungi that cause bones to decay, Steadman said. Expert diver Brian Kakuk and other skilled scuba divers retrieved the fossils from various places along the floor and walls of the blue hole, which contains salt water covered by a layer of freshwater.

“The fossils from Sawmill Sink open up unparalleled opportunities for doing much more sophisticated work than ever before in reconstructing the ancient plant and animal communities of the Bahamas,” Steadman said. “It helps us to understand not only how individual species evolve on islands, but how these communities changed with the arrival of people because we know that changes in the ecosystem are much more dramatic on islands than they are on continents.”

There are many blue holes on Abaco and other Bahamian islands, but this is the first to be the site of a sophisticated fossil excavation, Steadman said. Although the Bahamian government has gone to great lengths to protect its coastline, blue holes with their submerged cave passages have received little attention as a marine resource, he said.

The fossil site is especially valuable because of the presence of fossilized plants — leaves, twigs, flowers, fruits and seeds — pollen and spores, and vertebrates, giving evidence of both the island’s flora and fauna, Steadman said.

“In a typical vertebrate fossil site, you identify the species of vertebrates — reptiles, birds or mammals — and based on that identification you speculate what the habitat might have been,” he said. “For the first time here in the West Indies, we have here on Abaco plant fossils right in with the vertebrates, so we can reconstruct the habitats in a much more sophisticated way.”

For instance, because bracken ferns are one of the first plants to recolonize after a fire, the presence of their spores would indicate regular burning in prehistoric times and indicate that an area was grassland. Evidence for this also comes from the numerous fossils of burrowing owls or meadow larks, which prefer open habitats, he said.

Among the excavation’s findings are that the land-roaming Cuban crocodile lived in the Bahamas until humans arrived, Steadman said. “People tend to think of crocodiles as aquatic and certainly most of them are, but in the Bahamas where there is no fresh water, the crocodile became a terrestrial predator,” he said.

The collaborative project includes Bahamian scientists Nancy Albury, Keith Tinker and Michael Pateman, as well as paleontologist Gary Morgan of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History.

Florida Museum of Natural History researchers George Austin and Andrew Warren discovered the new butterfly from Mexico’s Sonoran Desert earlier this year, and describe it in this week’s issue of the Bulletin of the Allyn Museum, a peer-reviewed journal produced by the Florida Museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity.

The species’ new common name is the Minerva owl butterfly and its scientific name is Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae, named in honor of Margery Minerva Blythe Kitzmiller of Ohio on behalf of her five grandchildren. The donor wishes to remain anonymous.

“We are extremely appreciative of this gift which will allow us to continue research with our colleagues in Mexico,” said Warren, a post-doctoral associate at the McGuire Center. “Over the next two years we plan to name several additional new species of Mexican butterflies and conduct fieldwork in poorly known and threatened habitats throughout the country.”

Margery Minerva Blythe was born Nov. 17, 1883, in Malvern, Ohio, and died March 10, 1972. She married Frank Kitzmiller on Sept. 7, 1904, in Cleveland and they lived in Pittsburgh, Pa. They had three sons, all of whom fought in World War II.

“She was known as Minerva, or “Bango” to her grandchildren,” said Florida Museum Development Director Beverly Sensbach. “She was an extremely creative person who wrote poetry, played piano and sang, and her grandchildren wanted to honor her by naming this beautiful new butterfly in her memory.”

The public auction by iGavel.com ended Nov. 2 and is believed to be the first time naming rights for a new butterfly species have been auctioned online in North America.

The discovery of this new butterfly is significant because the species is large and colorful, and is the first butterfly from this group to be named in more than 100 years. Most newly discovered species are small and unremarkable because the more noticeable ones were discovered long ago.

“Opsiphanes blythekitzmillerae differs from similar species in its genus by having a unique wing shape and in having slightly translucent, tawny wing scales, allowing the underside pattern to be seen from above,” Warren said. “Because of its coloration, it appears most similar to another owl butterfly, Opsiphanes boisduvallii, but differs from that species in many structural and superficial characters.”

Owl butterflies are some of the most familiar and best-known butterflies in the world due to their large size and striking wing eyespots. The new species has a wingspan of about 4 inches and a beautiful orange color.

Surprisingly, McGuire Center collections manager Austin came across the species while curating butterflies at the McGuire Center, which holds one of the world’s largest collections of Lepidoptera at more than 6 million specimens, and called Warren.

Rather than naming the butterfly themselves, the customary practice when new species are discovered, Austin and Warren decided to auction the naming rights of the new species to raise money to support continued research on Mexican butterflies at the McGuire Center. Researchers at the Alfonso L. Herrera Zoology Museum at the National Autonomous University of Mexico are partners in the process.

John Calhoun, a research associate at the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, said some have worried that such auctions could have enormous ramifications if species are allowed to acquire commercial value, leading people to “discover” new species solely for the monetary potential.

“However, the rigorous process required to actually publish and validate new species makes this outcome less likely,” Calhoun said. .”It also demonstrates how science can become self-perpetuating; an important discovery can help fund additional important discoveries. Those who participate in this process are making a real and lasting contribution toward continuing the research on these species.”

Which one doesn’t belong? Actually, starting at this Saturday’s annual football match-up between the University of Florida and Florida State University, they all go together. That’s because UF on Saturday will become the first university in the nation to attempt to counteract the greenhouse gases created by a college football game.

To do it, UF and its partners, the Florida Forestry Association and Environmental Defense, are arranging for approximately 18 acres of rural North Florida land to be set aside and managed as a pine plantation forest for 10 years. UF calculates that this is an acreage and period of time sufficient to absorb all the carbon emissions from the game.

Dedee DeLongpré-Johnston, director of UF’s Office of Sustainability, is coordinating the effort on behalf of the university.

“This is a way for us to highlight the fact that even routine college events like football games generate large amounts of greenhouse gases,” she said. “We also want to show that we can help to counteract these emissions, and that Florida’s forests have value beyond their usefulness for paper products.”

The land is part of a 100-acre tract being set aside by UF supporters Jim and Winston Bailey. The remainder may be used for future carbon offset projects.

Carbon dioxide, which results from the burning of fossil fuels by power plants and vehicles, is the leading human contributor to global warming. As a result, governments and scientists are seeking ways to offset human carbon emissions through tree growth or other methods that sequester, or store, carbon.

One method already being pursued worldwide involves trading carbon emissions from one source for carbon uptake or storage by another mechanism. The UF initiative falls into this class of efforts, although, unlike others, it seeks to achieve the trade in the same geographic region so that it is more readily verifiable.

DeLongpré-Johnston said that with an anticipated 88,000 fans, this year’s game is expected to generate more than 1,750 metric tons of carbon dioxide. One metric ton, the standard measure of carbon dioxide, equals about 2,204 pounds. Carbon sources include fans and the FSU team traveling to Gainesville, lighting and operating the stadium, and lodging.

“We worked with the International Carbon Bank & Exchange to calculate the emissions,” DeLongpré-Johnston said. “Individual cars carrying fans to the game will have the greatest impact, producing 63 percent of the game’s carbon. Operating the stadium will generate 15 percent, with hotel and private air travel making up 10 percent of emissions.”

More details on the calculations are available at the UF Office of Sustainability Web site, www.sustainable.ufl.edu.

To counter that carbon output, scientists in the UF School of Forest Resources and Conservation calculated the amount of carbon stored in a managed pine plantation tract. Forests sequester carbon because trees take up carbon dioxide and release oxygen as part of normal growth. The scientists determined that 18 acres of managed forest, or about 14 football fields worth, were sufficient to take up and store the game’s carbon.

“Private forest landowners own more than 60 percent of Florida’s forests, and well-managed forests play a vital role in combating climate change, says Jeff Doran, executive vice president, Florida Forestry Association. “The faster a tree grows, the more carbon dioxide it removes. Since Florida’s climate provides optimal growing conditions, our forests can be very efficient scrubbers of greenhouse gases.”

To compensate the Baileys for preserving the forest, Environmental Defense, an environmental advocacy group, will pay the family to manage the plot for the next decade. Environmental Defense is now completing a technical review of the project, and will acquire additional offsets as needed to store the game’s carbon permanently.

“Florida’s 1,300 miles of coastline mean we’re the state that is most vulnerable to climate change, so it’s especially fitting that this is the first NCAA game to help tackle the problem,” said Jerry Karnas, Florida Climate Project Director for Environmental Defense.

DeLongpré-Johnston said an important goal is to raise awareness about the amount of carbon generated on college campuses and the challenges associated with dealing with it.

“At 18 acres for one game, some quick calculations reveal that we would need 126 acres to be managed for 10 years just to offset our football program for one year,” she said.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Soil-moisture sensors hooked to sprinkler systems could put a huge dent in homeowners’ utility bills—and help conserve much-needed water, a new University of Florida study says.

Researcher Michael Dukes found that for three of four rain sensors tested, water savings ranged from 69 percent to 92 percent, compared to grass watered without the help of sensors.

“The savings turnaround could be pretty rapid,” said Dukes, an associate professor in the agricultural and biological engineering department, part of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

That’s partly because in recent years, soil-moisture sensors have become less expensive, smaller and more accurate, he said.

“The cost is changing rapidly. A few years back, a $400 list price and about $100 to install was common, but now we’re seeing products in the $100 to $200 range,” he said. A typical Florida yard would require one sensor, though larger landscapes would likely need more.
To get the biggest savings, the irrigation system and the sensors must be in good repair, well designed and properly installed, Dukes said.

The sensor, buried ideally in the driest part of the lawn, overrides the automatic irrigation system if the lawn doesn’t need water.

In the study, accepted for publication in the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering, IFAS researchers tested four types of rain sensors. The more recent study dovetails with an
earlier one by the same researchers—published in the journal’s September-October issue—that showed homeowners could reduce water consumption by a third simply by setting their lawn-watering systems to more closely match plant needs, according to the season. (See related release.)

In the most recent study, each sensor was tested at irrigation frequencies of one, two or seven days a week. The one- and two-day watering frequencies most closely resemble typical watering restrictions in Florida.

Data was collected from July 20 to Dec. 14 of 2004 and March 25 to Aug. 31 in 2005.

On average, studies have shown that U.S. homeowners use about 50 percent more water outdoors than indoors. And water officials say lawn irrigation accounts for nearly half the potable water used in South Florida.

Taking the human component out of the watering process certainly seems to help reduce overwatering, said Kathy Scott, section manager for conservation projects with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, which sets water policy for some 4.5 million residents.

But Scott said her agency remains cautious and not quite ready to urge homeowners to run out and buy a soil-moisture sensor just yet. That may happen, though, after more study of homeowners’ watering habits.

“We are going to end up with a whole list of best management practices, so that we’ll be able to tell people exactly how to use the sensors,” she said. “We know they save water, we know that. But what we don’t know is what happens when the dial is in the homeowner’s hands.”

Many residents don’t realize how little irrigation most lawns need, she said. Often, those trying to start a new lawn take advantage of less-restrictive watering rules—unwittingly giving their new lawn a poor start.

“If you water too much, the roots don’t have any incentive to grow deep, so you end up with a lawn that’s weak, susceptible to pests, disease and has shallow roots,” Scott said.

It just seems to be human nature to overdo it, she said.

“My sense, from talking to people about this, is that they think if a little water’s good, a lot is better.”

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With drought persisting across the Southeast, homeowners can slash water consumption by simply readjusting irrigation systems – with no harm to lawns or landscaping plants, a new University of Florida study finds.

UF agricultural and biological engineering researchers spent more than two years monitoring 27 homes in Florida whose automatic irrigation systems had been set to different schedules. Their conclusion: Homeowners can cut water consumption by a third simply by readjusting the system to more closely coincide with soil moisture levels — a step made increasingly easy by more readily available moisture sensors and other technology.

“We set out to ask, if homeowners adjusted their systems, would they see a savings compared to homeowners who made no changes?” said Michael Dukes, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering. “The answer was ‘yes.’”

The study appears in the September-October issue of the Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering.

With Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama in the grips of a severe drought and Florida continuing to suffer from drought as well, the region’s dwindling water supply has become a prominent and controversial topic in recent months.

Many advocates argue that stepped-up conservation would solve or go a long way toward addressing what appears to be a chronic shortage. Residential irrigation is an obvious target: Nationwide, according to Dukes, at least 50 percent of household water gets dumped on lawns and plants. In the homes he studied, irrigation accounted for 64 percent of total water use, a common percentage, he said.

Dukes said the new study appears to be the first to quantify how adjusting residential irrigation systems could reduce water use in homes in the Southeast.

Researchers installed meters on 27 homes with automatic sprinkler-based irrigation systems in three Central Florida counties starting in January 2003. Although automatic irrigation systems are uncommon in older homes, most homes built today come equipped with the systems, Dukes said.

On nine homes, graduate student Melissa Haley reset the irrigation controllers monthly to account for historical rainfall and rates of evapotranspiration. Evapotransipiration is the process by which plants transpire water and soils shed it via evaporation. The goal of the resets: to apply only as much water as the lawn and plants needed.

With nine more homes, the researchers replaced sprinklers with precise micro- or drip- irrigation systems on ornamental plants in a substantial portion of the landscape. They left the last nine homes untouched.

Two and one-half years later, the results were clear. Homeowners whose controls were reset monthly slashed water use 30 percent, saving an average of 13,000 gallons per month — enough to fill up approximately six swimming pools each year — compared with homeowners with unaltered systems. Homeowners whose controls were reset, and whose sprinkler irrigation systems were replaced with drip irrigation, used half the water.

Equally important, there were no problems with brown lawns or dying plants on either of the more water-saving yards. “We did monthly to bi-monthly quality ratings of the turf grass, and there weren’t any differences on any of the homes,” Dukes said.

Homeowners with both automatic systems and traditional sprinklers can take advantage of the findings, Dukes said.

He said that most homeowners seemed to vary the amount of water they apply with only a few adjustments during the year. While that may appear to make sense, an immediate change in the weather can easily be missed.

Homeowners instead can copy the approach used in the study, setting up controllers based on guidelines developed from historical rainfall and plant water use rates. For help, Florida residents can consult the Florida Automated Weather Network site as the “Urban Irrigation Scheduler” (http://fawn.ifas.ufl.edu/tools/urban_irrigation/).

But another approach is to purchase soil moisture sensor and evapotranspiration controllers. Related research by Dukes shows that the moisture sensor controllers can reduce watering by as much as 69 to 92 percent, he said. (See related release.)

The St. John’s River Water Management District funded the research at a cost of $220,000. John Fitzgerald, project manager, said “reducing the amount of water…also tends to help condition your landscape for periods of lower rainfall. In other words, training your landscape…helps prepare it for Florida’s inevitable drought conditions.”