University of Florida News

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When scientists discuss Everglades restoration, one phrase pops up again and again — “getting the water right.”

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — While studying a way to more safely and effectively collect snake venom, University of Florida researchers have noticed the venom delivered by an isolated population of Florida cottonmouth snakes may be changing in response to their diet.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Marine sponges may not look like apartment buildings, but to shrimps, juvenile lobsters and other animals in Florida Bay, the puffy filter-feeders provide one of the few safe places to live.
In 2007, harmful algae blooms killed sponges in large tracts of the shallow lagoon, where fresh water draining from the Everglades meets [...]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When it comes to fighting fires, it’s usually the guy with the hose that gets all the hero worship. But as ever-increasing temperatures and droughts bring a greater threat from wildfires, sometimes it’s the guy with a torch who can do the most good.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Most would identify the tree by its often troublesome, spiky “gumballs,” but what many call the sweetgum tree also goes by another name, thanks to its distinctive, reptilian bark: the alligator tree.
So it may be fitting that researchers from the University of Florida, home of the Gators, have found that bacteria growing [...]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A newly discovered gene may be the key to producing fuel ethanol more efficiently from trees, and the University of Florida researchers who identified it have received a prestigious federal grant to investigate further.
The gene, which helps regulate wood growth and the composition of wood fiber, could also lead to improved tree [...]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Invasive Cuban tree frogs are spreading through Florida, but a new University of Florida study suggests their impact could weaken as they move farther north, because colder weather seems to reduce their average size.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study shows mammals change their dietary niches based on climate-driven environmental changes, contradicting a common assumption that species maintain their niches despite global warming.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — As the frozen soil in the Arctic thaws, bacteria will break down organic matter, releasing long-stored carbon into the warming atmosphere.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For months, Erik Anderson tried to persuade a flock of vultures to stop roosting at Santa Fe College’s main campus in northwest Gainesville. In the end, the vultures won. Years later, he sees them as he motors down Interstate 75 to work.
“I don’t fight them anymore,” says Anderson, the college’s director of [...]