Most students walk past FGCU\u2019s glistening ponds without a second thought, but those still waters are doing more than just reflecting trees. These ponds and the greenery around them help protect the campus itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Estero campus has 14 stormwater detention ponds that collect rainwater and help prevent flooding. These ponds not only provide flood control during storms but have also become the focus of one professor\u2019s research. These ponds are at the center of Dr. James Douglass\u2019 latest study. He\u2019s a professor and a marine benthic ecology expert, and he understands the integral role these ponds play on campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea of detention and retention ponds is to partially make up for what the natural landscape is no longer providing. Specifically, the detention and retention ponds are designed to: Prevent flooding and protect water quality by trapping and processing pollution before it progresses,\u201d Douglass said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On such a lush and forested campus, it\u2019s easy to get lost in the greenery, but some of its most important features are often overlooked. These retention ponds provide crucial flood control and research opportunities to students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Recently, these protective ponds underwent trimming, the process of managing shortline growth and aquatic vegetation. The trimming of these ponds can worsen water quality and flooding on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf ponds are destroyed or managed poorly, we will experience more flooding, worse water quality, and loss of native plant and animal diversity,\u201d Douglass said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Douglass continues his research despite the potential effects of these trimmings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will affect future studies, but we can still learn from it, because it gives us the opportunity to compare what happens when the ponds are mowed versus when they are left alone,\u201d Douglass said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the trimming has altered the ponds\u2019 original conditions, Douglass said valuable data remains. However, this research could have been more fruitful before trimming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPreliminarily, there seems to be a strong trend of having more diversity of both plants and birds in the unmowed detention ponds,\u201d Douglass said.<\/p>\n
Ani Harutyunyan, a second-year marine science major who grew up in Florida, is a campus naturalist. Campus naturalists act as a bridge between the campus community and University Colloquium students.<\/p>\n
They help students connect with the campus ecology. Like Douglass, Harutyunyan has conflicting feelings about the trimming of these ponds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not the biggest fan of mowing the ponds,\u201d Harutyunyan said. \u201cObviously, I understand it\u2019s a college campus, and the greenery needs to be maintained to a certain extent, but since sustainability is such an integral part of FGCU\u2019s statement, I would prefer to see more being done to showcase that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some feel that the trimming of these ponds could have been approached differently. Douglass feels the most significant issue surrounding the ponds is convincing pond owners and managers of the benefits of allowing plants to grow in them.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople think that by mowing and poisoning the plants they are keeping the pond \u2018clean,\u2019 but the opposite is actually true: plants are what allow the pond to effectively remove pollution, so the more naturally vegetated a pond is the better,\u201d said Douglass.<\/p>\n
When these retention ponds are allowed to expand, more research can be conducted.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs Florida\u2019s rainy season ends, FGCU conducts routine maintenance to clean and maintain the smaller ponds around campus,\u201d said Director of University Communications Pam McCabe.<\/p>\n
Douglass has been studying retention ponds for over four years and believes that, though the ponds\u2019 current condition is adequate, they could benefit from reduced maintenance.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFGCU\u2019s relatively naturally managed wet retention ponds are a great example for the community,\u201d Douglass said. \u201cHowever, even here at FGCU, we have some pond management practices that need improvement. For example, we mow many of our dry detention ponds, preventing them from being as diverse and functional as they could be if we let them develop more natural plant communities.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most students walk past FGCU\u2019s glistening ponds without a second thought, but those still waters are doing more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-65624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}