before north central Florida was the "horse capital of the world", it was a rare ecosystem called Hydric Hammock, with networks of small temporary freshwater ponds under an oak and palmetto canopy. every year more and more of it gets converted into fancy horse people pasture (or buildings, but around Ocala it's mostly the former) and the temporary ponds are either filled in or made permanent and stocked with fish to control mosquitos. The heavy seasonal rain and limestone soil which once supported this ecosystem now grows lots of grass for horses. here is unconverted hydric hammock versus new pasture, on opposite sides of the same road near McIntosh:
this area is home to a number of rare plants and animals adapted to the semi-wetland conditions. I study fairy shrimp, which survive the dry periods as eggs and hatch in response to seasonal rain. they can survive drought and wildfire no problem, but cannot survive habitat modification. At least three species only live in central Florida, and one is potentially extinct. probably more species are hiding in other parts of the US south like Georgia and Alabama, but not a lot of people are looking for them, and obviously there's very little money in it.
Here is an adult Dendrocephalus proeliator, a central Florida endemic species which I co-described in 2019:
I've been burned too many times by the academia industry to want to risk finding an advisor and doing a thesis, like I am expected to. People can be cruel and I don't want any more bad experiences. So I do research entirely on my own as a hobby. For eight years I have been tracking the shrimp in whatever little pieces of semi-natural land have not yet been terraformed. maybe someday I will be able to do more, but for now I just document what I find.
anyway, that's what I mean by "ancient shrimp forest".
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