GEER 2008 is this week. GEER is the Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration Planning, Policy and Science Meeting For Everglades Restoration 2050 – Advancing the Science to Achieve Success
July 28-August 1, 2008, Naples, FL

The webcast is available here beginning Tuesday, July 29, at 1:30 p.m.

A pdf of the entire agenda is available here.

Wednesday’s workshops (not webcast, unfortunately) will feature a discussion of ongoing science at the ARM Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. Cindy Fury, the FWS biologist at the refuge, will be the moderator. In the morning sessions (from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Wednesday):

• Paul Wetzel will talk about restoring tree islands
• Susana Stoffella will talk about LILA
• Samantha Lantz will talk about the effects of vegetation and water depth on wading bird foraging
• Pamela Sullivan will talk about tree island hydrology in LILA.

The first afternoon session (1:30 -3:00) about the refuge will be moderated by Matt Harwell. Discussions include:

• Michael Waldon comparing the SoFla Water Management Model with a Simple Refuge Stage Model for the refuge.
• Chunfang Chen and then Ehab Meselhe discussing Spatially-explicit Hydrodynamic and Water Quality Modeling of the refuge
• Zhixiao Xie discussing patterns of variability in the EDEN Digital Evolution

The second afternoon session (3:30-5:40) will feature Donatto Surratt moderating; discussants include:

• Xin Wang on how vegetation cover decreases evaporative loss in a wetland ecosystem
• Jim Entry on water quality gradients in the refuge
• Tiffany Trent investigating food quality effects on the FL apple snail
• Ryan Lynch on Old World Climbing Fern
• Debra Willard on how refuge wetlands respond to hydrologic changes, both anthropogenic and climatic.

Wednesday afternoon, Gregory Graves will give a long talk entitled “The Key to System-Wide South Florida Restoration: Lake Okeechobee,” which sounds interesting.

Peggy VanArman will speak on Friday, comparing growth of newly-hatched young of two species of crayfish from South Florida.

These are just a few of the dozens of talks that I wish I could attend. Maybe I should take that vacation day after all…