Using the TOP Model to Measure Program Performance: A Pocket Reference

Amy Harder

Landscape Design: Putting Your Yard on Paper—Site Measurements and Base Maps

Gail Hansen and Erin Alvarez

Calibrating Time Domain Reflectometers for Soil Moisture Measurements in Sandy Soils

Tara Bongiovanni, Pang-Wei Liu, Daniel Preston, Johanna Montanez, Courtnay Cardozo, Steven Feagle, and Jasmeet Judge

How Ecosystem Services are Measured and Why it Matters for Florida

Charles Wallace, Anna Braswell, Mysha Clarke, Andrew Ropicki, Tara Wade, Frank Asche, Ashley Smyth, Armando Ubeda, and Ed Camp

Florida has many ecosystems that are thought of as especially important such as springs, coasts, dry prairies, and the Everglades. One of the ways importance is measured is through value. The term ecosystem services describes the benefits ecosystems and their components provide humans. This publication describes some of the ways to measure ecosystem services and explains how the different approaches to assess ecosystems might be selected, depending on what is most important to the user. This publication should help Extension and outreach agents, as well as agency personnel better understand ecosystem services values and explain them to the public. It should also help interested members of the public who wish to learn more about ecosystem services for themselves.

Spatial Measurements on USGS Topo Maps

Hartwig H. Hochmair and Adam R. Benjamin

A UF/IFAS numbered peer reviewed Fact Sheet. Published by ==Natural Resources==

Conversions of Parts per Million on Soil Test Reports to Pounds per Acre

Guodong Liu, Yuncong Li, and Aparna Gazula

A UF/IFAS numbered Fact Sheet. in support of UF/IFAS Extension program: Animal Systems

Current and Emerging Protocols for Carbon Measurement in Agricultural Soils

Suraj Melkani, Noel Manirakiza, Shirley M. Baker, and Jehangir H. Bhadha

Soils have the capacity to function as a sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide and are crucial for climate regulation. Soil have the potential to store around 1.5 to 2.4 trillion metric tons of C in the soil globally. They contain large C pools that can store three times more C than the atmosphere and four times more than plants. These massive C sinks have the potential to reverse soil degradation, mitigate climate change, and enhance food security. It is therefore essential to monitor the C cycle by accurately measuring the amount of soil C in agricultural fields. This can help in developing sustainable management practices that can minimize C emissions and sequester C into the soil from the atmosphere. This publication describes the various current and emerging protocols that can be used to measure soil C.

Determination of Microalgal Concentration by Use of Turbidity Measurement

Huiping Yang and Jayme C. Yee

The goal of this study was to develop a rapid assessment of microalgal concentration using a turbidity meter to serve commercial shellfish hatcheries for feeding shellfish larvae and broodstock. We used four commonly used algal species, Tetraselmis suecica, Isochrysis galbana, Chaetoceros calcitrans, and Chaetoceros gracilis, generating serial dilutions of each and measuring cell concentrations and turbidity of each sample. We identified linear correlations between cell concentration and turbidity and established standard equations between cell concentration and turbidity for each species. We sampled and quantified algae from a shellfish hatchery using these equations and compared hemocytometer counts. No differences were found (P = 0.174), indicating the accuracy of the equations. We expect that this method can provide a quick, accurate, easy method for shellfish hatcheries to quantify algal concentration and avoid either over- or underfeeding larvae and broodstock.