SECN Highlights August 2021

Left, Ches carries one of the artificial reef balls to the shoreline. Right, the Living Shoreline Reef Balls in place at Kingsley Plantation in Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.

Photos courtesy of Ches Vervaeke

Great Balls of Life

New SECN Coastal Ecologist helps with Living Shoreline Project

William "Ches" Vervaeke, the new SECN coastal ecologist, assisted Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve and the University of North Florida, with a Living Shoreline Project at Kingsley Plantation in the park. Ches surveyed the location of reef balls, a type of artificial reef which encourage oyster recruitment and provide fish habitat. He also assisted with the transport and placement of the reef balls on the shoreline. Ches comes to the Southeast Coast Network from the USGS where he was an ecologist at the Wetland and Aquatic Research Center (WARC) in Lafayette, Louisiana. Ches detailed with the network earlier this year, assisting with the installation and survey of Surface Elevation Tables (SETs) at five coastal parks. He earned a BS and MS in Marine Biology and Estuarine Ecology from the University of Southern Mississippi. He is currently enrolled in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Environmental and Evolutionary Biology PhD program studying elevation dynamics of black mangroves as they expand their northern range in our network. Ches will start officially with the network on August 15 and will be duty stationed at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in the near future.

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Practice Makes Perfect. Eric Starkey, SECN aquatic ecologist, pulls the grab sampler full of sediment from Lake Oconee, near the network headquarters in Athens, Georgia, during a practice run for the Park-wide Assessments. This shake down exercise ensures sampling equipment and safety gear were in working condition prior to heading out to the parks nearly 10 hours away. Daniel McCay, SECN hydrologic technician, pictured in the background, also participated in the practice run.

NPS photo / Mark Hynds

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Recent Publications

The Southeast Coast Network recently published the following reports:

• Terrestrial Vegetation Monitoring at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve: 2019 Data Summary. Available at: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2286623
• Wadeable Stream Habitat Monitoring at Congaree National Park: 2018 Baseline Report. Available at: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2286621
• Shoreline Change at Fort Matanzas National Monument: 2019-2020 Data Summary. Available at: https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2286608

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For More About the SECN: https://www.nps.gov/im/secn/index.htm