MRI-R2: Acquisition of a Laboratory Research and Teaching Flume for Estuarine Sediment Bed and Ecological Research and Education

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"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)."This award will fund the acquisition of a 5 meter Armfield Laboratory Research and Teaching Flume with sediment recirculation and wave making features. The flume will be used to estimate the critical shear stresses of sediment in the variety of biomediated benthic habitats in the Caloosahatchee R. and surrounding waterways. The flume will also be used to measure macroalgal attachment forces and their drag force in a current. This information will help develop a numerical model of transport and dispersal of macroalgae. The dynamics of macroalgae are currently of great interest because of the need to understand the mechanisms and processes that are creating large macroalgal blooms on the beaches in Florida. Further applications will be to investigate the effects of freshwater inflows and sediment flow over and around oyster reefs, coral reefs and seagrass canopies, biomechanics of marine organisms and taphonomic (study of decaying organisms over time) experiments.