2003-2004 Research Summary
The 2003-2004 fiscal year was one of unprecedented research and curatorial activities at the Florida Museum. The museum's curators and collection managers had more than $8 million in multi-year grants to support research, collections curation and education.
Collections & Research Highlights
Download a copy of the 2003-2004 Museum Annual Report (PDF)
Research Locations
Florida Counties
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New Grants
Florida Museum faculty and staff received 28 new grants totaling more than $1.8 million from the following agencies:
- Administration for Children & Families
- All Species Foundation
- American Association for Advancement of Science
- American Orchid Society Fund
- American Ornithologists Union
- Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services
- Florida Department of State
- Evolving Earth Foundation
- Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
- Foundation for Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies
- Institute of Museum & Library Services
- National Science Foundation
- St. Louis Zoological Park
- State University of New York
- University of Guam
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- U.S. Department of Commerce
- U.S. Department of the Interior
Teaching
- ANG 4950 Internship in Museum Curation, 3 credits
- ANG 6930 Caribbean Field School, 3 credits
- ANG 6930 Lessons from Ancient Environments, 3 credits
- ANG 6930 Maya Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, 3 credits
- ANT 4905 Internship in Museum Curation, 3 credits
- ANT 4907 Research Project in Social/Cultural Anthropology, 3 credits
- ANT 6905 Internship in Museum Curation, 2 credits
- ARH 6946 Museum Practicum, 3 credits
- BOT 2710 Practical Plant Taxonomy, 3 credits
- BOT 5725 Plant Taxonomy, 4 credits
- BOT 6935 Special Topics: Population Genetics, 2 credits
- IDH 3931 Artists and the Florida Environments, 3 credits
- WIS 4945C Wildlife Techniques, 2 credits
- ZOO 2203C Invertebrate Zoology, 4 credits
- ZOO 6927 Avian Anatomy and Specimen Preparation, 4 credits
- ZOO 6927 Invertebrate Zoology, 4 credits
- Graduate Committees Served: 111
- Graduate Committees Chaired: 50
- Independent Studies: 85
Collections & Research Highlights
Archaeology and Ethnography
- Curator of Caribbean Archaeology William Keegan directed research projects in Jamaica and St. Lucia. The St. Lucia project is the first systematic survey of one of the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. He also helped direct the first archaeological survey of the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
- Environmental Archaeology Curator Kitty Emery was nominated as the 2004 Scientific Research Society of North America Lecturer. She and Collection Managers Irvy Quitmyer and Sylvia Scudder and Archaeobotanist Donna Ruhl have concentrated on research related to ancient human-environment interactions in the circum-Caribbean basin, in Florida and the Southeast, including human impact on the environment by over-exploitation of terrestrial and marine environments, the socio-economics of natural resource control in complex societies and study of methods in recovery and interpretation of environmental archaeology data.
- Collections work included establishing a digital archive of skeletal images of all Maya terrestrial fauna in the Environmental Archaeology collections and upgrading the curation of the wet archaeobotanical collections.
- Assistant Scientist Karen Walker focused on the environmental archaeology of the Pineland Surf Clam Ridge. She also curated collections from the Futch Cove Site at the Kennedy Space Center. Along with Ruhl, Walker curated the archaeobotanical collections from Pineland and continued work on a project on the environmental archaeological analysis of the Everglades National Park and curation of collections from the park.
- Curator of Florida Archaeology William Marquardt received the University of Florida Research Foundation Professorship Award for distinguished research and scholarship.
- Under the supervision of Marquardt and John Worth, coordinator of research programs and services, field research and educational outreach continued at the Museum's Randell Research Center on Pine Island. Marquardt and Walker also wrote a page for the National Park Service web site on the Museum's southwest Florida research.
- Florida Archaeology Curator Jerald Milanich received the 2004 Florida Academy of Sciences Medalist Award for outstanding contributions to the promotion of scientific knowledge, the stimulation of interest in the sciences, or the diffusion of scientific knowledge. He also was recently elected to the board of trustees of the Archaeological Institute of America.
- Museum Ceramicist Ann Cordell completed investigations of pottery and clay samples from archaeological sites in St. Lucie, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee and Okaloosa counties. Florida Archaeology Collection Manager Scott Mitchell accepted the position of director of the Silver River Museum in Ocala in June 2004. Diane Kloetzer and Donna Ruhl have been acting Florida Archaeology collection managers since Mitchell's departure. The Florida Archaeological Council honored longtime Anthropology volunteer Thomas Vickery with a 2004 Stewards of Heritage Preservation Award in recognition of his special efforts to support archaeology and historic preservation through his work at the Museum.
- Curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology Susan Milbrath was involved in a Mayapan archaeological project involving the analysis of the corpus of ceramic incense burners to identify different patterns of representation and form a typology. Along with help from Museum Registrar Elise LeCompte, Milbrath completed a 500-object database for the Museum's Pearsall Collection of Native American artifacts. Work also continues on an online database of the Latin American archaeological ceramics collection.
- Distinguished Research Curator Kathleen Deagan received the 2004 J.C. Harrington Award for "distinguished contribution to the discipline grounded in scholarship" from the Society for Historical Archaeology.
- Along with Historical Archaeology Collection Manager Alfred Woods, Deagan continued research on Florida's first Spanish settlement in St. Augustine, Columbus' 1492 fortress of La Navidad in Haiti and investigation of Taíno responses to Spanish contact in Hispaniola at En Bas Saline in Haiti. With help from Office of Museum Technology staff, they also developed a web site on archaeology in Haiti.
- Deagan and Woods also completed the development of an online, interactive ceramic comparative collection containing more than 40,000 digital photographs of the Florida Museum historical archaeology ceramic-type collections.
Museum Studies
- The Museum continues its successful relationship with the University of Florida's Museum Studies Program in the College of Fine Arts. Graduate level interns from the program work with Museum curators and collection managers on projects related to collections curation, exhibits and museum administration. Several Museum curators, such as Charlotte Porter, and collections staff, such as Elise LeCompte, also teach courses and classes related to museum theory and collections management for the program.
- Porter completed work on the development of the Bartram Trail Conference. She started a research project with the UF Museum Studies students to locate artifacts made from deerskins obtained by the British from the Creek and Seminole of Florida. She also is developing a CD-ROM on William Bartram.
Botany
- Curator Norris Williams and Laboratory Director Mark Whitten researched the molecular systematics and biogeography of several orchid families by focusing on DNA sequence data. They also researched the molecular phylogenetics of certain orchids. Williams received the first Lankester Prize from the University of Costa Rica for pioneering work on the ecology, evolution, phylogeny and systematics of orchids.
- Collection Manager Kent Perkins initiated a cooperative program between the Herbarium and Kanapaha Botanical Gardens to conduct a floristic inventory of the gardens. The project seeks to document the native, naturalized and cultivated vascular plants in the gardens. Data and specimen images collected as part of this project are available online, www.flmnh.ufl.edu/herbarium/kanap/. Perkins also is working with the University of Florida Libraries Digital Library Center on Herbarium web site improvements to aid users with plant recognition and identification questions.
Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genetics Laboratory
- Curator Pam Soltis and Adjunct Curator Doug Soltis researched questions of angiosperm phylogeny, patterns and genetics of floral evolution and patterns and processes of gene and genome evolution.
- Specific projects include the development of a comprehensive phylogenetic tree of living and fossil angiosperms, research on the origin and evolution of the floral genetic program and phylogenetic tools for evolutionary and functional genomics of angiosperms, as well as development of the Tree of Life database (a digital library of biodiversity information) and establishment of a comprehensive database for plant systematics.
- Assistant Scientist Matt Gitzendanner researched the genetic diversity and self-incompatibility locus characterization of the Florida jujube and developed microsatellite loci for genetic analysis for Lewton's milkwort and Avon Park harebells.
- Graduate Research Professor David L. Dilcher and Museum Biologist Terry A. Lott researched fossils from Alabama, Brazil, China, Costa Rica and Tennessee and created a database for early angiosperms of the world and morphotypes of Eocene fossils of Tennessee.
- With major help from Graduate Research Assistant Shusheng Hu, they also conducted pollen counts of northeastern Florida. Dilcher and Beth Kowalski worked on leaf physiognomy and climate of the eastern U.S. The lab also participated in field research on the Cretaceous of Minnesota, Eocene of Tennessee and Miocene of Alum Bluff, Fla. Curator Steve Manchester researched the Eocene floras of western North America, the anatomy of specific fossil plant families from the Paleocene and Cretaceous and the systematics and fossil history of Vitaceae.
- Research Associate David Jarzen returned to the Museum and researched Florida and the southeastern U.S. palynofloras from Tertiary and Quaternary deposits and lake cores. He continued to work with colleagues in Australia on Proteaceae and other Gondwana taxa. He also curated and catalogued the modern pollen and spore reference collection and fossil palynofloral localities into a database.
- Collection Manager Hongshan Wang continues his research on Cretaceous Dakota Flora of the Western Interior. His research focuses on the diversity of angiosperms during the mid-Cretaceous and the comparisons between the Dakota flora and other coeval floras of North America. Graduate Research Assistant Xin Wang researched the effects of lightning in preserving cytoplasm in plants that then become fossils.
Invertebrate Zoology
- Associate Curator Gustav Paulay researched the marine biodiversity inventory of Oceania, the molecular phylogeography of Indo-West Pacific mollusks and systematics and biogeography of tropical Indo-West Pacific marine invertebrates.
- Curator Fred Thompson researched Mexican land snails and freshwater snails in Florida. Thompson also surveyed molluscan biodiversity in Honduras, Chihuahua and Veracruz.
- Collection Manager John Slapcinsky studied new species of invertebrates in Papua New Guinea, researched introduction of exotic species to North America, and, along with Invertebrate Paleontology Collection Manager Roger Portell and Anthropology Curator Bill Keegan, studied changes in invertebrate taxa from prehistoric sites in Jamaica.
- Paulay, Thompson and Slapcinsky started a project to computerize all newly acquired tropical and subtropical mollusk collections at the Museum.
Vertebrate Zoology
- Curator Wayne King surveyed exotic herps that have been introduced into Florida and attempted to develop an index to predict which exotic reptiles and amphibians released in the state will not become established, which will become established in local populations only, and which will become widespread invasive pests. He also collaborated with Charlotte Porter on documentation of wildlife exploitation and trade at the time of William Bartram's visits to Florida.
- Curator Max Nickerson pursued research on the effects of flooding and harvesting on various populations of hellbender salamanders. He also carried out studies on chelonian populations and on venom glands in snakes.
- Associate Scientist Richard Franz worked on new species of fossil tortoises from the Caribbean, South Carolina and Florida, while continuing to research fossil tortoises in Nebraska. The Florida Gopher Tortoise Council honored Franz through its establishment of the Auffenberg and Franz Conservation Award.
- Collection Manager Kenneth Krysko headed a multi-agency team that researched four newly introduced species to Florida and the impact these species will have on native Florida ecosystems. Krysko and museum scientist Kurt Auffenberg discovered a new angular-toed gecko from Pakistan. Auffenberg also researched land snails in Pakistan and the Philippines. All Herpetology curators and staff expanded the herpetology publications on the Florida Museum web site by more than 300 pages.
- Assistant Scientist William Crampton and Assistant Curator James Albert completed a faunal inventory of the Peruvian Amazon floodplain and studied the evolution of electric signaling in gymnotiform fishes. This project included study of the systematics, phylogeny and biogeography of these fishes, as well as the development of software for analysis of electric signals of fish. Crampton was involved with a 2003 National Geographic film on electric eels. Collection Manager Rob Robins worked with ichthyologist Larry Page on the All Catfish Species Inventory, a $4.7 million grant the National Science Foundation awarded to the Florida Museum.
Florida Program for Shark Research
- The Florida Program for Shark Research staff, including George H. Burgess, director, Franklin Snelson, visiting scientist, and Cathy Bester, education coordinator, had a very active year. Among the new and continuing projects underway are five studies determining the ages and growth rates of tiger, basking and hammerhead sharks, investigations examining the reproductive biology of 10 shark and stingray species, dietary studies of sharks and rays, development of fishery management measures for protected dusky sharks and the documentation of movement patterns of bull sharks in Florida and reef-associated sharks in Belize.
- The International Shark Attack File staff continues to investigate shark attacks, determine trends and consult internationally on reducing the threat of shark attack.
- Assistant Curator David Reed conducted research on the genetic analysis of lice and the support for direct contact between modern and Archaic humans. He also initiated the BioCorder Project (www.flmnh.ufl.edu/biocorder). This web-driven database will track specimen data and products derived from those specimens such as DNA sequences, morphological data, images, datasets and publications. Collection Managers Laurie Wilkins and Candace McCaffery continue the division's research on the endangered Florida panther, thanks to support from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Wilkins also oversaw installation of the Museum's Images of the Maya exhibition, which she designed and curated.
- Curator David Steadman conducted research on the paleontology, biogeography, evolution, systematics and community ecology of birds on tropical islands and changes in bird communities in the Neotropics.
- Steadman also worked on the higher-level phylogeny of birds as revealed by the Cenozoic fossil record. This project includes study of fossil birds from the Thomas Farm site in Gilchrist County, Fla. A 2003 BBC film featuring Steadman won the Carl von Linne Science Trophy at the Living Europe Film Festival in Sweden.
- Collection Managers Andrew Kratter and Tom Webber continued to curate new additions to the collections, including skins salvaged from rehab clinics throughout Florida. Steadman, Kratter and Webber gained biological knowledge of Florida's birdlife through specimen salvage at wildlife rehabilitation clinics in conjunction with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Along with Steadman, Kratter surveyed and collected birds on Espiritu Santo in the South Pacific.
The Katharine Ordway Chair in Ecosystem Conservation
- The Museum welcomed Ordway Eminent Scholar of Ecosystem Conservation Scott Robinson from the University of Illinois. His research focuses on the nesting success and populations of birds of the Ordway Preserve, including the effects of urbanization on community composition.
Paleontology
Invertebrate Paleontology- Collection Manager Roger Portell conducted fieldwork at several quarries in St. Lucie County where unique species of sand dollars, sea urchins and sea biscuits were discovered in shell beds approximately 120,000 years old. Many new fossil species were collected as part of the Florida Geological Survey State Map Program. Portell, along with colleagues in the Netherlands and Jamaica, began National Geographic Society-funded research documenting fossils from a rare 2 million-year-old raised reef on the north coast of Jamaica. Thus far, more than 60 species of marine snails and clams have been identified along with four new crab species.
- Museum Facilities Manager and Research Assistant George Hecht conducted fieldwork and curated the division's microfossil and teaching collections and library.
- Assistant Curator Jonathan Bloch joined the Museum. His research focuses on the early evolution of primates, bats and insectivores.
- Distinguished Research Curator Emeritus David Webb collected Miocene vertebrates at sites in southwestern Montana. Collection Manager Richard Hulbert and Research Scientist Art Poyer continued fieldwork at Thomas Farm. Preparator Russell McCarty worked on fossils from the Thomas Farm excavations and ran a workshop on mold making and casting techniques.