Steve Newell, marine scientist at the University of Georgia

newell@uga.edu

[scientist at work] [Manuel & Steve] [Jan, Brigitte, Steve, and Peter]

DISCLAIMER:The content and opinions expressed on this Web page do not necessarily reflect the views of nor are they endorsed by the University of Georgia or the University System of Georgia.

IMAGES CONNECTED TO RECENT CORRESPONDENCE:

Bonnie & Steve, Jun 03 ---- B&S2 ---- B&S3 ---- Bonnie and Steve under Blackbeard

It's Bonnie Newell now, as of 12 June 2004; photo is of Bonnie and Steve with Rev. Phillips, who performed the ceremony at St. Andrews beach.

I am now retired (finally hit 60 with 28 years of service credit), as of Feb 05 ( retirement luncheon; I'm standing behind Bonnie, at Lula and George Walker's restaurant on Sapelo). I'm still available at my UGA email box.

I presented a poster at IMC7 in Oslo in Aug 02 on behalf of the GCE/LTER/DCE team -- also drove around a bit in Norway.

Do you suppose that this little spider wants to be seen from the rear as a bright-orange smiley face?

Check out this little black moth with big scary white eyespots on its wings.

Smoke & the solar light

Oh friend on my computer screen
Who could have dreamt how much you'd mean?
No matter I can't hear or see you
You're always there for me to E-you! ...Gail Cooke in the WSJ

Please check out my little science-info blurb INFO, SYN. (This is the important material; the stuff below the following image section is mostly personal and/or fun stuff [except for the links to mycological sites and other scientific items].)

Scientific-Image Section

[The first two images are huge, and take a while to come up, but they're worth it!] How about viewing the smooth-cordgrass marsh from a helicopter? Now put your head right down into the canopy. Zoom out. Zoomout2. Take a look at a typical short-shoot of smooth cordgrass. And here's a patch of black needlerush, and the brackish-water sister species to smooth cordgrass. Here is a Sapelo marsh site where lots of recent work has been done, and here's the Odum/Teal Boardwalk and the Marine Institute, and Oakdale Creek, where the marching marsh is evident. Here's John Teal himself, at Chocolate on Sapelo, in March 02 (courtesy Ron Kneib & Susan Peterson). If you plan to study marshgrass decay, please don't use litterbags! Now take an ultra-close look at what saltmarsh ascomycetes can do to marshgrass lignocellulose. It is easy for anyone to find evidence of fungal activity in naturally decaying shoots of smooth cordgrass. Fungi can be found working on marshgrass in unexpected places. Ergosterol can serve as an index chemical for living-fungal mass. Feed acetate to a fungus, and you can find its instantaneous growth rate. Saltmarsh ascomycetes are susceptible to DNA-tech attack, too. Take a look at some fungal-productivity data. Did you know that some of the organic mass of fungal hyphae is outside of the hyphae? Would it surprise you to know that dew is a major wetting vector for standing-decaying marshgrass shoots? Take a look at one of the saltmarsh ascomycetes, the one that causes black-peppering. Without the terrific advance-work of these good people, no one would be doing useful saltmarsh-fungal science. Here are the club-shaped ascospores of another cordgrass ascomycete. DNA technology has helped us find an undescribed ascomycete that seems to "like" really old blades. Here's an ascomycete that sometimes replaces the main blade-decomposer of smooth cordgrass. Here are the meiospores of an ascomycete species from naked stems, and here's what this one does to the stems that it occupies. Look at this little jewel (slightly slow to load). This sporodochial form of an ascomycete often occurs alongside the last-linked, bright-orange ascomycete. This is where to look for the sexual structures of most cordgrass ascomycetes. Here are the outward appearances produced by four cordgrass ascomycetes. Ascomycetes in decaying blades of saltmarsh grass can blast out a lot of spores. Here is what an ascospore deposit looks like at the microscope. Some ascomycetes of the cordgrass-decay system still need to have their names coined and published . One bright yellow ascomycete of the system is visible to the naked eye. There is a connection between cordgrass ascomycetes and pathogenic ascomycetes of agricultural systems. Fungal productivity can be just as high in Maine cordgrass as it is in Florida cordgrass. Here's a major sink for the mass produced by saltmarsh ascomycetes. Periwinkles like mycelial spaghetti. Dew permits snails to climb. There is at least one other snail that eats naturally-decaying marshgrass. Baby snails can be colorful . At least one crustacean also grazes decaying marshgrass. Amphipods can very selectively grab fungal stuff. There are two species of crabs that are suspects as saltmarsh-fungal grazers. The marsh-edge squareback eats mushrooms when it roams into the edge of the forest. Here's a reconfigured saltmarsh model that explicitly recognizes fungi and their grazers. Some fungi may be able to fend off grazers. There are tiny microsnails in the saltmarsh sediment that may also be sinks for fungal mass. Did you know that microalgae are commonly partners with fungi in decomposition systems? Here is a different view of the cordgrass microalga, and here it is as colonies on agar (about 1 mm across) after several months on a bright windowsill. How do prokaryotes (bacteria) fit into the cordgrass-decay system? There are connections between the cordgrass-decay system and the saltmarsh bacterioplankton. One fate of bacterioplankters is to be eaten by mussels.

There is one marshgrass ascomycete that is not a decomposer of standing-dead shoots -- instead it cheats the living grass out of some of its photosynthate. There is also a basidiomycetous (rust) pathogen of smooth cordgrass; it's bright orange.

Some eukaryotic mycelial decomposers of the saltmarsh are oomycotes, not fungi. That last image was of the "delicate" version of Halophytophthora vesicula; here is the "robust"version. Here's an oomycote that resembles an old-fashioned satellite. Here's an oomycote named after Manny Master. Here's an oomycote that occurs rarely but regularly in the saltmarsh ecosystem. Look at the moment of zoospore expulsion. One ecosystem wherein oomycotes appear to be more active than fungi (with respect to submerged-leaf decay) is the mangrove system. Mangrove2 Asian mangroves. Oomycotes find fallen leaves quite quickly.

Did you know that there are marine oomycotes that digest nematodes from the inside out?

There are honest-to-gosh Fungi that have swimming zoospores (the Chytridiomycota); one is a symbiont of a seagrass.

Saltmarshes are not the only environments wherein one can find fungal standing-decay systems -- freshwater prairies are another type of likely place to look. Intertidal grasses may support higher fungal standing crops than those of freshwater systems. At least in some cases, this difference can be seen with the naked eye

Browsing & Doodling Section

Check your watch; don't waste too much time fiddling around with the links below! (Note: UTC = EDT + 4 or EST + 5.) Here's a 200-year calendar that you can use to find a suitable year to use for your calculator, etc., that can't deal with 2000+ dates (this was among the things my Dad had squirreled away; found it in one of his drawers in 1987).

Curious about personal items? If so, you may peep at PERSONAL TRIVIA, SYN; caution -- parts of this are a little corny.

Maybe you'd also like to learn more about The University of Georgia School of Marine Programs or to visit UGA, or check out the UGA ecology-seminar schedule? Or read about the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. Sapelo Island and the adjacent mainland now constitute an NSF Long-Term Ecological Research site (GCE/LTER). Here's some info for potential visitors to the UGA Marine Institute. Please note that one does need to be aware that there are wild animals ( --1-- --2-- --3-- --4-- --5-- --6--) on Sapelo (but some --1-- --2-- --3-- --6-- --8-- --10-- --14-- aren't scary). Here is the north end of Nannygoat Beach on Sapelo, and here are three common shells of Sapelo beaches. Here's a view of Nannygoat from behind the seaoats on the dunes (courtesy M&M Olsen). One can hunt for shark teeth on Sapelo beaches. Native Americans were the first to occupy Sapelo. Old bottles are very hard to find on Sapelo. When it rains a lot on Sapelo, mushrooms and other basidiomata (e.g., --1-- --2-- --3-- --4-- --5-- --6-- --7-- --8-- --8a-- --9-- --10-- --11-- --12-- --13-- --14-- --15-- ) pop up all around. Here's a map of the Marine Institute, and here's one of the Meridian Dock area, with a ferry schedule. Here's a roadmap, for the trip from Athens to Sapelo. The turkey fountain is at the center of the Marine Institute. The Marine Institute has T-shirts and caps . One can buy small items (e.g., beer) at Viola's store (BJ's) (this is a watercolor by George Williams). Here are the UGMI Contributions, which can be requested from the Marine Institute librarian.

Get some good local seafood when you visit the Sapelo Island area.

Connect into mycological info for UGA by starting at David Porter's Home Page or visit the website of the UGA MDG. Or look at info on The Mycological Society of America, including an e-mail list for members and a bulletin board/calendar. Or gaze at Tom Volk's beautiful images of fungi Or go to a mycological library . Or go to UTN/K and learn mycological techniques, etc. Or visit a medically oriented mycology site. Or read about The Fifth Kingdom. Visit a fungal culture collection in the Netherlands, or in Japan? Visit some mycophiles in central western England/Wales?

Here are brief descriptions of Florida mangrove species . Here's a description of smooth-cordgrass marshes in Connecticut. Look at this nice image of a boundary between black needlerush (background) and smooth cordgrass (Steve Brewer's website). Here's a site of a really dedicated saltmarsh scientist. Here are some images of saltmarsh plants from Virginia. Note that north and south of the Georgia Bight, widths of Spartina alterniflora marshes are measured in meters, not kilometers as in GA, and in the northeastern USA, Spartina patens is predominant. Here's some info re coastal-marsh health and protection.

You can search specifically for pictures at AltaVista; try the word "mangroves". Or try Ditto.

Here's a source of info on aquatic plants, including invasive ones. And here's some marsh-restoration info for Spartina alterniflora. Or Sa2, and here's a drawing. Interested in saltmarsh restoration in Australia? Here's some info on the Phragmites problem.

Want to go for a scientific jaunt? Or tour some botanical gardens? Fairchild Gardens is not linked correctly at the foregoing site. UGA has a nice State Botanical Garden. Want to go to a zoo? Or zoo2 (this one links to Smithsonian Museum sites also)? Or visit the website of a terrific aquarium? Or aquarium 2. Or aquarium 3. Or go on scientific voyages by ship to explore the bottom of the sea.

Get some horticultural info from UGA Extension.

Shocked at your students' lousy English grammar? Send them here. And here's a dictionary site. Or dictionarysite2.

Want help writing an HTML piece? Here's some web-construction info.

Worried about developing cyclones in the Atlantic? Want to see a forecast track? Want to see if it's raining on Sapelo? Or Sapelo-rain2. Or GA radar from WTOC. Local forecasts: select Glynn coastal. Here's an alternative cyclone-info source. Or cyclone-info source 3. Or cyclone-info source 4. Or WTOC's big-globe trop-weather image.There are tide tables at this site (in chart form too!) that work for Sapelo (click N. America, then select the South Atlantic NOAA region, and then type in Savannah River Entrance in the other box). To check for wind and barometric-pressure effects on tides, go to NOS' tidesonline (Note: the Ft. Pulaski station is about one hour delayed with respect to Savannah River Entrance). Or try tides2. Or tides3. Or tides4. Here are the Southern NWS offices at which local weather predictions can be found. A lot of McIntosh County would go under water in a hurricane. Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd gave us quite a scare on Sapelo in 1999, but Hurricane Hugo gave us a much bigger scare in 1989. Here's a hurricane archive going all the way back to 1886! Here's more archive info, with coastal-population data.

Goin' fishing? Better check the rules.

Want to look up someone's contact info? This site has a great postcard-creation system, too. For phone numbers, hit this last link.

Did you win the lottery?

Here is a good NIH medical-info site. Or HealthLink. Or DiscoveryHealth. Or HealthGate. Try the Merck Medical Manual. Get healthy at UGA. Buy some pharmacy stuff. Or pharmacystuff2. Or try HealthCentral. Look up drug info at PharmInfo. Need alternative medicines or health supplements?

Jim Morris has some neat T-shirts.

Try an outlet-mall site?

Need a washing machine or a wrench? Go to RepairClinic to learn how to use your tools to fix your washer.

Do you wonder what your congressional representatives have been doing?

Here's an interesting book-review site. Look for out-of-print books here. Or here. Or both old and new books at Powell's.

Wondering what's on TV? Or TV2. Check tonite's TV listings for sports.

Ever try a music-listening site? Get some oldies collections?

Looking for a source for computer books? Or computer books2. Take a look at Walter Mossberg's helpful columns from the WSJ on computers, software, etc. Want to buy some electronic stuff? Try ZDnet shopping for inexpensive computers.

Need info for mailing something?

Considering some travel? Or travelsource2. Or travelsource3. Or TripCom. Or Fodors. Try Orbitz for available flights/fares, or SmarterLiving for hotel, rental-car, and airfares. Or maybe SideStep. Or TravelWeb or TravelNow for accurate hotel rates. Or Hotel Reservations Network for discount rates. Compare air fares. Doesn't the clean air at sea smell good! -- try a cruise. Like B&Bs? Or B&B2. Want some info on points of interest at a particular destination? Need to convert some currency? Need a map? Or maps2 . Need some translation done? Or translation2. Here are tips for business travelers. Buy some travel stuff from LonelyPlanet? Need to check UGA travel regulations?

Australia is an amazing country/continent. One might like to retire there (this is a pdf file). Western Australia is particularly attractive, I think -- it's temperate in the south, but doesn't freeze, so there are all sorts of tropical-type things (lorakeets, cockatiels, etc.).

Thinking about retirement financial questions? Or retirement-calculator2. Or retirement-calculator 3 (plus other useful calculators).

Like political satire?

Need new tennies? Or shoes2.

Want to sell or buy a car? Find a good price for a car. How about your house? Or realty2. Or use OwnersCom.

Want to shop and compare prices? Or shoppingsource2. Or shoppingsource3. It's pretty hard to beat Yahoo as a shopping site. Maybe try IQVC?

Considering buying a particular piece of music? Or musicsource2.

How about a little read of news? Or try some good, nearly-local, big-city news. Or some medium-size-city news. Or some capitol-city news. Or some mammoth-city news. Or some news from the gateway to Latin America. Or pick from this list of newspaper links.

You can send me email via my web page.