Fisheries Population Dynamics
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FAS 6337 -- I took Fisheries Population Dynamics taught by Dr. Mike Allen in my first fall semester of my PhD. The following fall, I co-taught the course alongside Dr. Bryan Matthias, Dr. Ed Camp, and Dr. Allen. The last semester of my PhD, I co-taught the course again with just Dr. Allen, where I led a coding/analytics update. This foundational quantitative course is aimed at providing graduate students with analytical abilities to answer research questions on many common fisheries datasets. The class covers growth, maturity, mortality, recruitment, and demonstrates a few of the simpler stock assessment methods. This hybrid course caters to distance and in-town graduates primarily, though advanced undergraduates can enroll.
I returned back to this course in the Fall of 2020 as an instructor. Dr. Allen and I revised all the experiential, analytical material and I developed a series of interactive modules to facilitate hands-on exploration of course concepts through simulation. These modules were built with R-Shiny and have helped students beyond the course with power and exploratory analysis in their degrees and professional applications. |
(Above) Cohort abundance of Black Crappie from Lake Lochloosa. Data such as this is used to teach Virtual Population Analysis, a hindcasting method of stock assessment.
(Above) The welcome module for the fisheries population dynamics interactive modules
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Above is an embedded Shiny app that compares the growth of Spotted Seatrout from two populations in Florida. The app runs von Bertalanffy growth models using a maximum likelihood estimation based in R. Users can choose whether to share all, some, or none of the parameters of the growth models between the populations. Each model tested is recorded and the resulting Akaike's Information Criterion is displayed for users to conduct their own model selection after testing various models. In the FAS 6377C course, an app such as this is paired with an assignment to explore the data, build and test models, conduct model selection, and biologically/ecologically interpret the results.
Field Ecology of Aquatic Organisms
Ink drawing from Aquatic Plants in Pen-and-Ink by the University of Florida Center for Aquatic Plants.
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FAS 5276 — This field-based immersion course was perhaps my favorite course to teach, so I did it two summers in a row. What could be better than visiting aquatic habitats scattered throughout peninsular Florida and exploring them with students. The course always began at Okefenokee Swamp, the headwaters of Suwannee River, and going on a swamp tour with Chip , a tour guide with Okefenokee Adventures. Chip would regal us with tales of the swamp while students learned of its geologically recent origins, freshwater management, as well as the flora and fauna of the peaty swamp. The next trips would follow the Suwannee downstream to freshwater trips along its course, Ichetucknee Springs State Park, and even further to the river mouth in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge. Students would explore the changes in ecosystems and management challenges along the river's course and, hopefully, spot a jumping Gulf Sturgeon. From there, the course would chart a path eastward through north Florida lakes, where I did my PhD research, and even further to another one of Florida's great rivers, the St. John. Here, students would wet their feet in Salt Springs and follow the spring run to the river-lake Lake George where they would get their first experience electrofishing and trawling. From there our trips would zag back westward to the Three Sisters Spring along the Chassahowitzka River where students would begin a dive into the world of aquatic weeds management. A few vegetation and fish community samplings later, the trip would begin a southern jaunt to the Lake Wales ridge, a stretch of paleo-barrier islands along Florida's spine and the bastion to Florida scrub habitat. Here, the course would stay overnight at Archbold Biological Station, explore the ancient Lake Annie, electrofish on Lake Istokpoga, and fan boat on Lake Okeechobee. These systems would highlight the tight connection between freshwater hydrology, fisheries management, aquatic weeds control, and endangered species management of Snail Kites. As their last trip, students traveled to the Everglades and the Florida Keys to snorkel Looe Key. Here, they learned about spiny lobster ecology and management as well as learned marine fauna.
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