Hitchhiker on one of the lab plants this morning.

Can't get enough of these fox squirrels.

8 weeks post-fire, longleaf pine / wiregrass, north Florida.

1 minute time lapse of a-ci curve measurement on wiregrass (*Aristida beyrichiana*) in north Florida.

Rainbow river, Florida.

Students in my summer natural resources class with the Florida champion longleaf pine (*Pinus palustris*). On private property near Newberry, Florida. Students choose from field trips focused on private land management, ecosystem services, invasive species management, and ecosystem restoration.

A largish prey animal inside a larger diamondback rattlesnake. North Florida flatwoods.

Find the fox squirrel.

Nice!

Drosophyllum plants with leaf-traps fully covered with mucilage in a summer day (10 july) on bare, dry soils. How do they manage? We’re working on it.

Longleaf pine (*P. palustris*) / slash pine (*P. elliottii*) stand on a spodosol in N. Florida. Understory primarily wiregrass (*Aristida beyrichiana*), saw palmetto (*Serenoa repens*), gallberry (*Ilex glabra*). Prescribed fire every other year, it will burn again this summer.

I mentioned naval stores last week. Here’s another industrial use. Subfossilized resin from Agathis trees (#Araucariaceae) in New Zealand was prized for varnishes. Gum-diggers excavated tons of the stuff. 📷: An Old Gum Digger of Houhora, North Auckland, Archives of NZ CCBY2 #resin #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

Today's forestry pic (running late), Sitka spruce trees on the Olympic Peninsula. #forestry #trees #nature #washington #olympic

Scallop eyeing me after being pulled out of the Gulf of Mexico.

About 30 minutes post- prescribed fire. Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) in northern Florida.

If you're waiting on a reply, a peer review, or other effort from me--please be patient. I urgently left to document a developing forest die-off event more intense than any I've seen. No obvious biotic agents, dead & dying include multiple Pinus & Juniperus, many Quercus, & shrubs. #WhatKillsTrees

Subterranean holiday: Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky.

Candyroot,*Polygala nana*. Northern Florida flatwoods. Thanks to @ecologyonfire.bsky.social for ID. If it doesn't have bark, I'm clueless.

I was surprised to find that a mountain laurel grows in Florida flatwoods, definitely NOT in the mountains! *Kalmia hirsuta*, hairy mountain-laurel.

Quite a few hummingbirds this year. A male has been busy trying to win over a lady friend, while he drives off the other two or three males that try and visit the feeder. It keeps him very busy!

Attended concert 2.5 hours away from campus with a colleague, opening act was introduced as being from Gainesville. Thought I recognized bassist, turns out she was one of our students. Small world!

Great news - we will be searching for a tree physiologist (tenure track) to join the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, UBC Forestry, later this year. Stay tuned! (Please share.)

I agree re: the graduate school part. There are no guarantees, so make sure it's something worthwhile to you for its own sake.

Spring primary growth in N. Florida. These 'candles' are expanding embryonic needles formed last fall in overwintered in buds. In this species (longleaf pine), there is generally only one growth cycle. Other southern pines may undergo multiple cycles in a year.

😢 #phd

Five lined skink on my porch in northern Florida.

"House" group on Congress trail, Sequoia National Park.

Sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana) and giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) survivors of the 2021 fire in Sequoia National Park.

My irritated neighbor.

After a year and a half of planning, this riparian forest buffer was finally planted! This field flooded too often to reliably crop it so we worked with the landowner to plant this 6.5 ac to trees. Can’t wait to see this in the next couple of decades!

Fusiform rust (Cronartium quercuum) gall on longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) releasing aesciospores. These spores will infect young oak leaves, which will eventually release basidiospores, which can infect pines.

Great day to be on the fire line, during prescribed burns in some of our experimental prairie plots

A nuanced and sophisticated analysis of U.S. ability to achieve softwood lumber self-sufficiency. Is the current administration willing to use nuanced and sophisticated analyses to inform policy? lnkd.in/ec_8RmQM

Women's crosscut competitors at this year's Association of Southern Forestry Club's annual timber sports event.

The show / science must go on.

Coming soon to a university near you. Florida has been "test driving" a lot of policies that are likely to be more common in the coming years. Follow me for more fun glimpses into your future.

It's time for #BackYardSugarBush2025! The weather this week is (mostly) what we want: freezing at night, above zero during the day. The sap should be running - let's go tap some trees! (If you followed #BackYardSugarBush2024 or previous years, you might want to mute this thread...) 1/5

Fully funded PhD in Plant Ecophysiology at UBC in Vancouver 🍁! Possible topics include leaf physiology, thermal ecology, microclimates, scaling, tree physiology, forest ecology & more. Start Jan/May/Sept 2026. michaletzlab.org Please share! #PlantEcoPhys #Ecology #Botany #PhDposition #GradSchool

The Florida State Collection of Arthropods is hiring a Collections Manager (Biological Scientist IV) in Gainesville. Applications close March 20, 2025. For inquiries, contact Dr. Patrick Gorring. Apply here: 42001238. #job

Updating tags on a long-term longleaf pine experiment. The study is examining the effects of prescribed fire and mowing on pine growth and other ecosystem characteristics.

Space Needle through the glass roof of the Chihuly Museum. #BlueSkyArtShow #windows #photography

It's spring in northern Florida as leaves emerge on one of the few deciduous conifers, baldcypress (Taxodium distichum).

A female Northern Cardinal taking off due to nearby Red-winged Blackbirds causing a ruckus.

Chloroplast earrings!

great, now I have to sit in the garage and listen to Aja tonight

Two pileated woodpeckers having brunch on a downed log in my north Florida backyard.

Reposting some old stuff. Yes, that includes me.