Casie UR- Beautiful Yet Deadly?

Water Hyacinth

I have always had a love and fascination for plant life. I find that even the smallest things have some of the greatest impacts on the environment. I think that having a better understanding of plant and animal life we can have a greater understanding of the earth and individual habitat. So when we were instructed at the beginning of the semester to start thinking about what we might do our Independent Research Project on I immediately thought about invasive species.

 I have taken quite sometime thinking about the ins and outs of how I might do my IRP this semester. I had started thinking about invasive species in the Florida water ways and been wavering between studying marine life or plant life.  I have finally narrowed it down to the Eichhornia Crassipes. More commonly known as the Water Hyacinth. I am very interested in knowing how these beautiful plants smoother out the water ways and how this impacts other plant and marine life in the areas that it is effecting.

Illustration courtesy of Florida Fish and Wildlife

 I believe that taking root samples of the Hyacinth and the water that surrounds it can give me more clues to what this plant is doing to the marine life and to the
water quality. I am very excited about this project and I can't wait to see what the data reveal.