Aquaculture
Florida’s aquaculture industry is valued at more than $100 million, and is incorporating an increasing array of marine products. The commercial culture of hard clams is a major success story and there is growth in the marine ornamental species sector. Florida Sea Grant has supported research and extension to increase the volume and value of marine ornamental and shellfish aquaculture, both to enhance the coastal economy and take pressure off native wild species.

Feeding guidelines have been established through Sea Grant funded research that will allow the marine ornamental fish industry in Florida to increase the efficacy of fish production.

The Florida clam industry is built on a single species. Florida Sea Grant is supporting research to diversify the industry with new products including the sunray venus clam (a native Florida species) to increase economic stability and industry growth.

Ninety percent of clam growers use a computer program—dubbed CLAM software—developed by Florida Sea Grant for record-keeping and management decisions. Eight workshops enabled 42 clam growers to refine their business and recordkeeping practices through an understanding of computerized spreadsheets.

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Biotechnology
The goal for this program area is to develop marine bio-products that promote human and ocean health and productivity.

Florida Sea Grant has supported research, applying the tools of biotechnology, to develop methods to isolate natural products from marine organisms that may be used as life saving drugs. Recent accomplishments from this cutting-edge research include:

• Development of a compound from sea squirts that may have anti-tumor capabilities.
• Development and licensing of a process to manufacture anti-inflammatory agents from Florida corals.
• Use of venom from cone snails to develop compounds for treatment of debilitating neurological diseases such as epilepsy.
• Identification of compounds in marine blue-green algae that can reduce chronic inflammatory diseases.
• Cloning of sponge-derived proteins that can serve as new anti-tumor and anti-microbial chemicals.

Environmental bio-tech research is targeting the control of barnacles on ship hulls through development of new anti-fouling compounds derived from natural products of sponges. These new compounds are less harmful to the marine environment than currently used paint additives. An effective anti-fouling paint compound that also has low environmental toxicity will save money, reduce fossil fuel consumption and environmental impacts and enhance transport efficiency.
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Coastal Hazards
Florida’s coastline, home to 80 percent of the state’s residents, is at risk from wind, waves and flooding related to hurricanes and tropical storms. These coastal hazards can result in loss of life and billions of dollars in damage to public and private property. The goal of this program area is to improve coastal community resiliency by identifying risks and reducing human, property and habitat impacts from storms and other natural hazards. The following are example of recent Florida Sea Grant activities.

Florida Sea Grant funds research in the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program (FCMP), a partnership of universities formed to provide economically feasible engineering solutions to reducing wind damage through construction of more wind-resistant coastal structures. Using portable stations positioned directly in the path of hurricane landfall, researchers with the FCMP captured for the first time in history real-time hurricane wind velocity data, and then transmitted the data to the NOAA National Hurricane Center. The FCMP database of 14 storms —including Charley, Dennis, Jeanne and Frances—is now large enough to conduct analyses that produce statistically significant findings about the behavior of destructive ground-level hurricane winds. The information can be used in home construction to better prepare structures to withstand hurricane winds—both by retro-fitting older coastal residences and through added safeguards for new construction.

A predictive rip current index has been produced to reduce the number of rip current related deaths by more accurately identifying the conditions under which the strongest and most dangerous rip currents occur. This index provides real-time information that can assist lifeguards with staffing decisions and alert the public to this hazard. Rip current forecasts have become a routine part of coastal weather forecasts through the National Weather Service.

A storm surge model developed at the University of Florida with funding from Florida Sea Grant was used by the State of Florida’s emergency management professionals in the 2007 annual hurricane preparedness exercise.

Nearly three dozen lived-in homes on Florida's coast are now outfitted with an intricate system of pressure reading instruments that stand ready to collect and transmit storm wind pressure from inside the house in real time. Florida Sea Grant researchers at Florida Institute of Technology have developed this system hardware and software to alert local emergency managers of impending disastrous weather conditions.

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Coastal Management and Policy
Managing coastal development and waterways is a critical challenge in Florida. Traditional water-dependent small businesses and public access to the coast are increasingly at risk as the ocean front experiences rapid development. More than one million boaters use Florida’s waterways, creating the need for improved access and maintenance, greater public safety, improved boater education and enhanced resource protection and management. The goal of this program area is to develop decision support tools, methods and innovative policies to ensure safe navigation, promote recreational and commercial access to waterways and to encourage the responsible use and management of Florida’s coastal ecosystems

Florida Sea Grant’s Boating and Waterway Management Program is providing geospatial technologies, expertise, planning and leadership to develop new spatial data on waterway resource use and to develop comprehensive waterway management applications. Outcomes include policies that promote waterway access, boating safety, streamlined permitting for maintenance dredging operations and, ultimately, healthier coastal habitats.

• Sea Grant has partnered with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and local governments to objectively study boater habits and preferences to better plan for boating access and environmental protection. A map-based mail survey technique developed and implemented in the study gives boater’s a voice in the planning process and is used to disseminate educational materials to the boating public.
• Florida Sea Grant has developed a web-based educational resource to raise manatee awareness and protection. The site, Manatee Awareness and Protection Resources, contains an interactive map that integrates geographic information and educational modules in a format that presents human use, regulations and environmental factors that help guide manatee protection in Florida.

Florida Sea Grant is supporting a program of legal extension to state and local policy professionals across a range of waterway and waterfront issues including recreational and working waterfronts, boating and waterway management and coastal development policy. "Waterways and Waterfronts: A Community Guide and Policy Tools", has been developed to disseminate policy guidelines generated from this project. Another important outcome for coastal community planners and managers is the design and implementation of a spatially explicit geo-referenced legal database that compiles coastal community ordinances establishing on-water regulatory zones.

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Ecosystem Health
Economic growth in Florida is intimately linked to healthy coastal ecosystems and the services derived from them, including commercial and recreational fishing, swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving and eco-tourism. The state’s waters support a diverse biological community and are home to three of the nation’s National Estuarine Research Reserves and four National Estuary Programs. The goal of this program area is to protect and restore coastal ecosystems and their human uses by providing objective science to support decision-makers and resource managers and by empowering citizens to be good stewards of the environment.

Florida Sea Grant funded research is developing a new portable sensor technology for rapidly measuring and monitoring sewage pollution of coastal waters, allowing regulatory and management officials to make informed decisions regarding beach closures and shellfish harvesting in a timely manner.

Florida Sea Grant is supporting research to quantify how changes in water flow from the Everglades (caused by implementation of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program) will affect sea grass beds in Florida Bay that provide critical habitat for economically important marine fish.

Florida Sea Grant has been active for more than two decades in advancing the scientific basis and technology of artificial reefs, and in advising anglers, divers and resource managers on reef planning, deployment and use. Sea Grant marine agents routinely provide technical assistance to their county artificial reef coordinators on reef-planning activities.

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Fisheries
Florida leads the nation in terms of economic value from all uses of its marine fish and shellfish. However, Florida’s fisheries are affected by multiple-use conflicts, global trade, overfishing, and coastline development that contribute to habitat degradation and to product loss. Florida Sea Grant sponsors research, education and outreach activities to ensure that ecosystems remain healthy to support fisheries, and that fisheries are managed in a way to achieve maximum sustainable economic and biological returns.

Florida Sea Grant sponsored research is using genetics to help NOAA determine the origin of harvested sharks and to sustainably manage the shark fishery. A rapid and reliable method of DNA analysis has been developed to identify shark species from fins, carcasses, and other body parts. This one-step technique puts teeth in NOAA's efforts to prosecute US fishing vessels suspected of trading protected shark species, but will also exonerate innocent traders. Shark DNA forensics research now is part of the Smithsonian Ocean Hall display in the nation’s capital.

Florida Sea Grant also is supporting research to identify essential fish habitat for a variety of ecologically and economically important species. For example,

• Electronic tagging of bull sharks within the southern portion of Florida and the Gulf of Mexico has provided some of the first evidence of long and short migratory movements that can contribute to determination of essential fish habitat for the sharks.
• Acoustic sensors are being used to identify the spawning habitat of commercially important fish such as black drum.
• Population dynamics of gray snapper is being determined to identify critical habitats for this and other fish species.

Using innovative modeling techniques, Florida Sea Grant scientists are predicting the health of the spiny lobster fishery and have completed an economic analysis of the State's trap certificate program. These results have been presented to the commissions that regulate and manage the fishery.

What Sea Grant researchers are learning about the biology and commercial fishery of marine sponges is helping insure sponge sustainability. FSG studies have shown that if sufficient sponge tissue is left attached to the substrate at harvest by cutting, rather than tearing, the sponge can survive and regenerate. Based on the industry’s embrace of this practice, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission now requires sponge divers to harvest sponges by this method.

Research and extension faculty provide the best available technical information to fishery management authorities at the state, regional and national levels. Recent service by Florida Sea Grant personnel includes membership on scientific committees of the Gulf of Mexico and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils. Direct input has been provided on management plans for sheep head, lobsters, yellow snapper, goliath grouper, and blue crab.

Fishery managers have documented that the mortality rate of released groupers and other deep water reef fish is high because when they are caught and brought to the water surface their swim bladder ruptures, releasing gas into the body cavity. In response, Florida Sea Grant funded a research program to develop techniques to "vent," or release gas from the fish so that they can return to deep water and have a higher survival rate. A venting tool was developed; several variations of this tool are commercially marketed in Florida, and a venting tool is now required by State law to be carried on fishing vessels fishing reef fish with live or cut bait.

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Seafood Safety
Florida has about 5,000 seafood processing plants and firms that range from small retail shops to the Nation’s largest shrimp processors. All are responding to increasing demand, shifts in available seafood supply, increasing international trade and competition, new regulatory inspection mandates and environmental concerns. The broad goal of this programmatic area is to maintain and enhance the safety, value and volume of seafood products in Florida and the U.S.

Leadership continues for the National Seafood Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Alliance in training HACCP and sanitation procedures for handling seafood. This multi-partner program began in 1994 and has trained over 25,000 people worldwide, including all federal FDA seafood inspectors, most state-based inspectors, and over 90% of all nationally based seafood processing firms, plus over 5,000 international participants from 30 nations. The course in both classroom settings and through the internet serves as the benchmark for seafood handling and processing training for any seafood commerce. It also satisfies mandatory training requirements for inspectors in both the State and Federal regulatory programs. The HACCP Alliance publications (in English and Spanish), based and distributed from the University of Florida in coperation with the Florida Sea Grant Program, remain the most successful and demanded UF/IFAS publications.

More than 80 percent of the shrimp that Americans buy is imported. To ensure imports are high in quality and safe to eat, Florida Sea Grant and the University of Florida's Aquatic Food Products Lab conduct an annual shrimp school for processors and regulators worldwide. The FDA now considers the school to be its principal training program, and each year provides two to four instructors to teach topics of current priority.

The Shrimp School’s success was replicated in a first-of-its-kind Oyster School held in 2007 in Apalachicola, home to 90 percent of Florida’s oyster catch and 10 percent of the supply nationwide. The Oyster School was developed in cooperation with state and federal regulators in an ongoing partnership to improve both the sustainability of Florida’s oyster fishery and safety of the fresh oyster supply.

Millions of U.S. consumers eat oysters. Large concentrations of certain species of Vibrio bacteria can accumulate in shellfish in summer months and lead to serious infections in some people with underlying diseases. Florida Sea Grant is responding to the need for safe seafood product processing and handling and increasing consumer awareness of the health risks and benefits associated with seafood and shellfish consumption by supporting the following research activities.

• Developing and testing methods that oyster producers can use to detect the presence of Vibrio in hours, not the days or weeks previously required.
• Conducting market studies to determine oyster consumer demographics to better direct educational and marketing campaigns to increase awareness of potential risks associated with Vibrio and identify new markets for oyster products.
• Developing a science-based product characterization program that standardizes profile descriptions, terminology and ratings for oyster products in the US, in a partnership with Sea Grant programs in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Ohio.

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Graduate Education
Graduate education is a cross-cutting goal that is integral to all of Sea Grant's thematic areas. The aim is to support the development of highly competent professionals who have the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary to become leaders in the academic, government and private sectors dealing with coastal science, education, outreach and management.

NOAA and other government agencies anticipate a shortage of skilled scientists and managers due to substantial retirements expected in this decade. Florida Sea Grant uses private endowments and research funds to support graduate students in marine and related sciences. Many of these graduates enter professional work forces with NOAA or join other government agencies in marine and coastal science careers.

A large percentage of Florida graduate students completing Knauss Fellowships have gone on to work in NOAA laboratories addressing critical issues including fisheries management, coastal hazard mitigation and international whale conservation.

More than 35% of FSG research funds have supported graduate student assistantships, with a total of 80 MS and 51 PhD students graduated or in process as of January 2008.

The top six disciplines supported have been marine biology, engineering, chemistry and biochemistry, fisheries and aquatic sciences, food science and human nutrition and oceanography.

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Marine Education
This cross-cutting Sea Grant goal aims to increase the knowledge of citizens in all age categories about coastal and marine issues and increase the use of science in the coastal decision making process.

Florida Sea Grant has enlisted the help of young anglers with a high-tech tracking project that may provide clues about where redfish go when released at fishing tournaments. Redfish are one of Florida's most popular saltwater catches, and now a select number of young fishermen who enter the annual Charlotte County WaterLIFE Kids Cup tournament can follow the movements of their released fish online once the fish is marked with a dart tag or surgically implanted with a sonic tag. One surprising find from the first year of the project is that none of the tracked fish returned to its original capture location. Tournament organizers have praised the research for its ability to inspire children to pursue careers in fishery science, and learn about protecting the area's fishery resource.

Florida Sea Grant ranked first among all 32 Sea Grant programs in electronic downloads (106,425) from the National Sea Grant Library in 2006. This represented 40% of all downloads from the top ten (in funding) Sea Grant programs.
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