Center: Center for Fisheries Habitat
Program: Fisheries Habitat Ecology
Supervisor: Kerri Duchon

Program Description:

The primary goal of the Fisheries Habitat Ecology Program is to understand the mechanisms underlying fisheries habitat quality, i.e. to understand what makes a habitat good or bad, for juvenile estuarine fishes. Understanding the important constituents of habitat quality is essential for the protection, restoration, or management of estuarine environments. This is important when one considers that Florida's human population is rapidly growing, especially along the coastline, which means declining habitat quality and quantity.

We are currently working on projects within Charlotte Harbor and are stationed at Mote Marine Laboratory's satellite lab at Pine Island, about 2 hours south of Sarasota. We are working on ways to assess habitat quality via performance-based measures, such as measuring the growth rates of fishes, performing physiological experiments to determine environmental optima and tolerance ranges, and assessing how fish communities respond to anthropogenic stresses.

Intern Duties:

Interns will assist program biologists in current research projects, which may involve tedious work, such as identifying juvenile fishes and invertebrates. Interns will also assist in sampling the Charlotte Harbor fish population, which involves long hours on the water and is quite enjoyable. Interns are also required to write a short paper, in scientific format, on their experience as an intern. The paper is encouraged to center on a small project that the intern designs and carries out through-out the term. Program biologists will provide ideas, advice, materials, and technical support to carry out the projects.

Required Qualifications:

Skills: None-required (will teach)
Education: H.S. diploma, Enrollment in college - Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Zoology, Marine Biology, Biology, or Environmental Science majors preferable but not required
Experience: None-required (will teach)
Other: Strong desire to learn about fish and/or the marine environment
Valid driver's license
Ability to swim
Good sense of balance while working on boat - should not be prone to excessive sea-sickness

* Note * - We view your internship as an important facet of your education and aim to teach you the hands-on-skills that cannot be obtained in a classroom.

Miscellaneous Information:

Normal working hours are from 8-5 p.m. However, fish live in a vastly differently environment than humans and thus behave quite differently, which means as biologists, we keep flexible hours, and often sample at night or during dawn/dusk. Because of unforeseen schedules, we encourage the internship to be the sole work-responsibility of interns; but, we do understand financial constraints and will be flexible if an intern needs to work evenings or weekends.

Be prepared to get wet and dirty - estuaries are muddy. Bring swimming suits (at least 2 so that if one is wet, you have a dry one for the next day), old T-shirts to wear in the field (they get permanently dirty after a summer), old sneakers or dive-booties for wading (boots don't work, they get stuck in the mud), a light rain-coat, a backpack or small bag, sunglasses, hat, and a camera. We usually have a dry-box and large cooler on the boat that you can keep lunches and personal items in.

You will live at the field station at Pineland. Contact Andrea Davis for detailed information.

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