52 Week Internship, National Park Service (Biscayne National Park, Florida): Ecology Assistant

POSITION DETAILS

Position Title: Ecology Assistant

Park Unit: Biscayne National Park

Location: Homestead, Florida

Number of positions available: 1

Can this position be fully remote: NO

INTERNSHIP DATES AND LENGTH

Duration: 52 weeks

Start Date: 05/1/2023

Flexible Start Date: YES

LIVING AND RELOCATION ALLOWANCE:

Weekly Stipend: $480.00

Relocation Allowance: $350.00

POSITION DESCRIPTION

The SIP Coral Restoration Internship will be based in the Habitat Restoration Program at Biscayne National Park. The internship will focus on five primary field initiatives that will further the park’s coral reef restoration and marine debris management goals:

1. Large-scale outplanting of nursery-propagated corals (10%): Large scale outplanting of nursery reared corals is planned for 2023-24, and the SIP intern will work directly with nursery partners (e.g., University of Miami, Florida Aquarium, Mote Marine Laboratory) and park staff to outplant corals to multiple reef areas. The intern will be responsible for helping the partners stage corals at outplanting sites, install site markers, prepare outplanting sites, prepare reattachment materials, outplant the corals, and document reattachments.

2. Restoration of storm damaged corals (20%): Storm events, especially tropical storms and hurricanes (e.g. Hurricane Ian/2022), can result in extensive physical damage to coral reefs. Dislodged and broken corals (“corals of opportunity”, or COOs) that survive a storm event may persist loose on the reef for some time, but will eventually perish as they are buried or rolled around during storms. COOs provide an extremely valuable source of live tissue for restoration. They can be strategically reattached to the reef with a high expectation of survival, and resulting “new” coral communities will have several important outcomes: maximized survival of precious coral tissue that would otherwise be lost; co-located colonies for several high priority coral species, increasing the likelihood that they may achieve successful sexual reproduction during spawning events; focal areas where park staff may attempt to collect gametes for larval propagation (i.e. logistical “spawning hubs”); and created structure and habitat for reef-associated fish and invertebrates. The intern will assist park staff with locating, moving, reattaching, and monitoring COOs.

3. Treating corals affected by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (20%): The intern will treat diseased corals with an antibiotic ointment across many reef areas of the park while embedded with park staff, affiliated researchers, and other partners conducting dive operations. The intern will be responsible for preparing and administering the treatment ointment, and documenting treatment applications (noting coral species, size, treatment methods, site coordinates; installing marker tags; and photographing treatments). Allowing the intern to 'piggy-back' on multiple dive operations enables greater coverage of park reefs, and provides the opportunity to learn first hand about the wide variety of resource management and research initiatives ongoing in the park.

4. Larval propagation of protected coral species during annual spawning events (10%): The intern will participate in coral gamete collection night dives, and settlement and propagation of resulting larvae. The intern will contribute to coral husbandry tasks in temporary field aquaria, and may also assist conservation partners with husbandry in established in-site and ex-situ coral nurseries.

5. Restoration of coral reef habitat through the removal of submerged marine debris (20%): Diving alongside program staff, the intern will systematically search reef habitat to locate and carefully extract debris from the reef. Debris items will be counted, categorized by apparent source and weighed prior to placement into a dumpster for landfill disposal.

The SIP intern will spend approximately 80% of the internship embedded in the aforementioned field-based operations. The remaining 20% of time will be spent on office-based project and administrative tasks and helping coworkers with other natural resource management projects such as sea turtle nest monitoring, lionfish management, fish and lobster creel surveys, and coastal forest restoration projects.

DELIVERABLES

The intern will be responsible for compiling, summarizing, and mapping restoration activities completed in the five focus areas. At a minimum, the summaries shall address the quantities, species, and locations of outplanted nursery corals and COOs; quantities of corals treated for disease including species, locations, treatment methods, and treatment efficacy; results of our spawning and larval propagation activities; and quantities, categories, and locations of marine debris retrieved from the reef.

As an alternative, if the intern has a school project to complete, the intern may discuss with the supervisor the opportunity to develop a project based on a park data set that the intern is actively working with.

The intern shall disseminate the summary information compiled (or results of data analysis project) in two outlets. First, the intern will make an oral/powerpoint presentation to park staff and interested partners at the end of the internship. The presentation will be recorded for use in dissemination park information to park stakeholders and the general public. Second, the intern will work with program staff to add the summary information to our ongoing restoration StoryMap and geodatabases.

DESIRED INTERN QUALIFICATIONS

WORK SETTING

Biscayne National Park (http://www.nps.gov/bisc) is one of the largest marine parks in the National Park System - 95 percent of its 173,000 acres is covered by water. The park is located in Homestead, FL in Miami-Dade County. The park is known for its coral reef and seagrass communities, exceedingly clear water, and keys with hardwood hammocks, mangrove forests, sandy beaches and rocky intertidal areas. The park preserves a unique, sensitive marine environment that is an important component of the south Florida ecosystem and economy. The Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay provide unique opportunities for great swimming, windsurfing, canoeing, kayaking, fishing, boating, snorkeling and scuba diving on the coral reefs. The climate is subtropical. The park headquarters at Convoy Point is located nine miles east of Homestead, a small city with medical and dental facilities (including a hospital), banking, groceries, educational and other amenities. Neighboring Miami, thirty miles to the north, provides all of the educational, medical, sporting, and cultural features of a thriving multi-ethnic metropolitan area. The park headquarters is located approximately 35 miles from the Miami International Airport. Homestead, Miami, and other adjacent communities support diverse populations with Latin American and Caribbean heritage.

VEHICLE AND DRIVERS LICENSE REQUIREMENTS

HOUSING

Park housing is available and will be provided at no cost to the participant.

Park housing MAY be available. The park has one 4-person apartment available for interns and temporary staff. I have submitted a housing request for this internship, that will not be decided on until early 2023, as the resource is shared across all park divisions.

If housing is not available at the park, other options in the local community may be considered. Existing

BISC or EVER staff may have a room available for rent. EVER may have park housing available. The park is

adjacent to the cities of Homestead and Miami with abundant and varied housing resources. The cost of local

housing options is varied depending on the situation. Alternatively, a qualified applicant from the local community

may be selected.

KEYWORDS

marine science, coral reef, seagrass, restoration, coral disease, marine debris