a digital florida experience

This week I needed to create a map of my intended study area. I ended up making several maps as I wanted to show things that would make one map a bit too busy. I used ArcMap to create the following. This first map shows Apalachicola National Forest(ANF) with the Florida National Scenic Trail (FNST) running through it in yellow. The inset map shows the forest in relation to Florida and the trail as a whole. What I wanted to show with this map was the level of road infrastructure present in the study unit. For the most part, the forest is widely accessible via a vehicle. From personal experience, however, I know that many of the roads shown require a high clearance vehicle -- sometimes more than just a standard 4wd pickup truck. The parking signs visible along the trail are trail-heads by which visitors can access the FNST. I show these to show that while the trail isn't necessarily accessible to those that would have mobility issues, it does have a number of access points. The large...

While doing research on my subject area, I came across this link . It's a quick read through National Geographic but touches on some of the reasons why the Florida Big Bend region is so important.

I've been asked to create a presentation on the basics of ecology covering 30-45 minutes. It's funny, I've given so many presentations on specific species, sites, methods, techniques, and research -- but I've never given a full length basic ecology presentation. That said, I leave the following below. It's incomplete. It's a work in progress. Like the environment around us, it will be a dynamic, ever changing entity.

When initially asked to define biodiversity, I wrote the following: The vast and varying collection of species and the ecosystems they comprise". I did a little digging around online and most of the definitions aren't terribly different than this. The one thing thing I didn't account for in my initial post was that biodiversity is also the INTERACTIONS between the entities I described. There is a popular (as opposed to peer-reviewed) article about biodiversity and WHY IT MATTERS that's worth a quick read.

The Florida National Scenic Trail (FNST) is a nationally designated scenic trail covering over 1,500 miles from Big Cypress National Preserve to Gulf Islands National Seashore. Of the 11 national scenic trails, it's one of only three that is entirely contained within one state. My study area focuses on a portion of the trail running just over 80 miles through St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge and Apalachicola National Forest. Why have I chosen not only this trail but this particular section. My reasoning is two fold. I. Visitor Use and Experiences ====================== It's estimated that over 300,000 people use the trail in some capacity each year ( pdf source ). Most of these visits are day hikers but there is also the occasional through hiker. Inevitably, these visitors take photos or videos and share them in some capacity with family, friends, and the internet in general. For some this is the closest they may get to experiencing the trail for themselves due to physical li...