Port Royal Sound Foundation

Welcome back to Tide Talk, the podcast where we explore the exciting world of marine biology, coastal ecology, and student-driven research at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. In this episode, host Dr. Joe Staton dives into the collaborative spirit and scientific discovery shaping the Port Royal Sound region.

We’re joined by Chris Kehrer, Science Program Manager at the Port Royal Sound Foundation, and Sarah Bourne, a USCB marine biology junior, who shares her eye-opening internship experience leading summer camps and environmental education at the Maritime Center. From kayaking with kids to hands-on encounters with snakes and muddy marshes, Sarah reflects on how this opportunity expanded her science communication skills and deepened her connection to the Lowcountry ecosystem.

Later, Dr. Ty Petty, associate professor of biology and head of USCB’s Water Quality Lab, joins the conversation. He discusses his transition from Delaware estuaries to the high-salinity Port Royal Sound and how his lab’s long-term water monitoring—bolstered by student researchers and citizen science—is helping fill critical knowledge gaps in the region’s environmental health.

🌿 Topics Include:

• Internships and career inspiration through experiential learning
• The role of environmental education in community outreach
• Harmful algal blooms and water quality research
• How citizen scientists are expanding our understanding of local waterways

🌊 Whether you're a student, researcher, or nature enthusiast, this episode offers a compelling look at the intersection of education, science, and stewardship in the Lowcountry.

🔗 Learn more about USCB’s programs and how to get involved at USCB.edu.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;21;24
Unknown
Welcome to TikTok, the podcast where we dive into research, marine biology and coastal ecology happening right here in the Lowcountry, taking place at the University of South Carolina in Buford. I'm Doctor Joe Staden, and I'll be your guide as we explore the stories, people, and passions that shape this. Research is so important to our shores and beyond. Whether you're listening from the beach, your backyard, or somewhere in between.

00;00;21;27 - 00;00;34;16
Unknown
We are here to bring the waves to you. So grab your suntan lotion, kick back, and we'll ride this tied together. Let's get started.

00;00;34;19 - 00;00;52;13
Unknown
Today we're joined by Chris Kear, the science program manager at the Port Royal Sound Foundation in Beaufort, South Carolina. Chris is originally from Savannah, Georgia and is a graduate of UCB. His passion for science research has kept him in the low country to make a lasting impact. With his wealth of experience and deep connection to the region, Chris brings a unique perspective to our conversation today.

00;00;52;16 - 00;01;16;03
Unknown
Welcome, Chris. Thanks, Jerry, for having me. So, tell the audience a little bit about your background and how you started the Port Royal Sound Foundation. So, well, I guess my background. You want me to go all the way back from when it first started? Sure. So my my father is actually a marine electrician, so I grew up on boats in the marsh my entire life.

00;01;16;05 - 00;01;46;03
Unknown
I had a shout out to Michelle. I had a close friend with a boat, so I spent most of my weekends out fishing, and I never really connected with any of, you know, the jobs that were thrown to us at job fairs, going to a Christian school. Biology was never, program taught every semester. So, you know, in especially in Savannah, there's not really a culture for, natural resources in the area.

00;01;46;12 - 00;02;06;28
Unknown
It wasn't until I was a high school senior and they offered a an elective marine biology course, and I said, why not? Let's take it. And what I got out of that as I was going to spend the rest of my life on about getting paid to do that. And so I was sold. And come to find out, that's not what the job, entails, but that's okay.

00;02;06;29 - 00;02;31;24
Unknown
What I did find when I came to unsub was that I truly enjoy the research, the wildlife experience, being out doing field work, coming back into a lab and analyzing all of that work done. And it hooked me. Excellent, excellent. I learned something new today. I didn't realize some of that. We talked. Disclaimer Chris is a former student of mine here at USC, who we're quite proud of.

00;02;31;24 - 00;02;54;21
Unknown
Tell us a little bit more about your position at Port Royal Sound Foundation, how it's kind of evolved over the years. Sure. So when I, when I took the first job, I got out of college, as most students, I think, go for and they had me being the that I was the naturalist for the foundation. And I was primarily focused on education school education, kids from kindergarten to high school.

00;02;54;21 - 00;03;22;00
Unknown
I had no experience in any of that. So it was trial by fire. I have many gray hairs because of that experience. And still to this day, I do a lot of, youth education, subbing sometimes for our field trip programs. But 2015, I started a foundation taking care of animals, creating exhibits, creating programs. And that's kind of just evolved through the years as the organization has grown.

00;03;22;00 - 00;03;45;26
Unknown
We focus a lot now on conservation research, and that's kind of my now, my niche there. I do a lot of adult programs for communities in this area, a lot of planned unit developments that have large environmental groups, as well as garden clubs and a variety of other topics. I'd do conversation or, I do programs for Ollie and stuff of that nature.

00;03;46;06 - 00;04;06;29
Unknown
And then today, I guess one of my largest, focuses is with that research side. So doing a lot of citizen science programs, getting power to these communities to learn what's going on in their backyard, as well as collaborating a lot with us. CB doing some work out on Pritchard's with some reptiles. So it's been a lot of fun.

00;04;07;00 - 00;04;26;09
Unknown
So just for the people outside the area, Holly, the Osher Lifelong Learning Studio is arm of our Adult Education Continuing program here at USC. Be part of a national program, actually. So cool. Yeah. Poor sound is like the deepest natural port in the region. And it's a natural focus for education about the environment and research. Give us an idea of some of the projects you mentioned.

00;04;26;12 - 00;04;56;27
Unknown
Richardson the reptile project going on out there. Give us some idea of some of the other diversity of projects that you're working on right now. Yeah. So water quality is kind of our main focus. And I'll backtrack a little bit where we 2020, we decided to gather many state experts in a variety of topics, from wildlife to, resiliency, water quality and we asked this focus group to create a set of indicators for the health of the Port Royal Sound area.

00;04;56;27 - 00;05;24;28
Unknown
And so with those set of indicators, we asked for 12. We got 21. Water quality was the stand out simply because it's an indicator of land use. It's an indicator of the health of the system, which is critical to our economy in this area. And so we started digging and looking at what available data is there. Found that Diaz has a ton, decade's worth of data from random sites to fix sites that have 20 plus years of data into it.

00;05;24;28 - 00;05;53;20
Unknown
And what we found is that there are there are major gaps in those data points, simply because it's a huge estuarine system, and the ability to monitor every single tidal creek is is impossible for one single entity to do so. It prompted us to then say, let's fill some of these gaps. Let's get, let's, let's create. We created the first level two tier state co-op for monitoring, which, allows the data that received to be used in decision making.

00;05;53;20 - 00;06;18;01
Unknown
And now we're using that effort with citizens to fill in some of these gaps and create new baselines. So that's one big project that's kind of what we're we're tackling right now. We're also we were approved through Sykora to install surface elevation tables. So there are sets as what they're called acronym for them all over the state from Myrtle Beach all the way down into the ice basin.

00;06;18;01 - 00;06;39;23
Unknown
But in the poorer, all sound. There are no set devices. The sets allow us to compare either a rising or decreasing marshes to sea level rise. So we have plans to deploy about 12 of these set devices on Prichard's in, in the Bluffton area, around Parris Island and all the way up into the headwaters of the broad River near the coast.

00;06;39;23 - 00;06;56;22
Unknown
AG there's a mouthful of local locations for people who are not in the area, but, Sykora is a is a is a, a directed area, through NOAA for research and, the Ace basin. Many people are familiar with that. But, it is on the largest lands provision on the East Coast. The United States is a cooperative, public and private.

00;06;56;22 - 00;07;14;28
Unknown
And one thing that the Audubon Society is called one of the last great wild places on earth, because it's such a 30,000. And how many acres is it? It's huge now. It's 300 and something. Thousand acres. Yeah. And, a beautiful place to visit if you're in the low country. That is that it was, that is a lot of stuff going on.

00;07;14;28 - 00;07;38;12
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's one last project I'd also like to do is shout out the Paul Sound Foundation gives me a very loose leash, and they allow me to do some projects that I'm very interested in. And so, that is focused around herbs. So we're also working on creating a new survey system. It's not a new survey system, but new to the area to monitor terrapin movement.

00;07;38;12 - 00;08;07;05
Unknown
So populations of terrapins found in the Saint Helena Island area that we're hopefully also going to replicate out on Pritchard's Island, potentially do some road mortality surveys. So looking at hit terrapins that are looking to nest out on Sea Island Parkway and then even we have some projects going on on Pritchard's doing herp surveys using cover boards, looking, specifically for some of the imperiled species like eastern diamondback rattlesnakes and drift fences that are out there taking photo IDs of some of these animals.

00;08;07;05 - 00;08;28;01
Unknown
So, so herp, being Herbert Farnham being things like, reptiles and amphibians, but, yeah, drift fences are standard and field work for logical research because you build up what looks like an erosional barrier and intermittently you put a bucket in between and where they track down the line, they fall into the bucket. And you can actually then count them and release them or tag them and release them.

00;08;28;01 - 00;08;53;09
Unknown
So, just just to bring people up to speed. Yeah. And so, that's a great description, but today too, we there's a little bit different of a method. So, obviously with a, with a bucket in the ground, right. Somebody has to be there every day to, to find those animals. So the new technique now is using a bucket, but you flip it upside down, you cut out the top and you put a plexiglass, square with a game camera.

00;08;53;09 - 00;09;13;03
Unknown
So actually the animals go into the bucket and a photo is tagged of that animal. And then with a lot of our snake species, you know, king snakes and Eastern Diamondbacks are notorious for this. They have unique scale markings on their head. So you can I.D. individuals through the photos. Yeah, I was aware of it. Was now a photo ID, but I wasn't quite sure how it's working.

00;09;13;03 - 00;09;30;16
Unknown
So. Great. Great explanation there. Well, you mentioned that, some of the research and, kind of highlight. I know the water quality we have, you have partnered with us on that with some of our professors, and we're gonna actually talk to Doctor Ty Petty later about the details. But, give us a little idea for the public private partnership we try to do with USB and Port Royal Sound.

00;09;30;17 - 00;09;50;19
Unknown
Yeah. It all kind of came together again. You know, 2020 was a really big catalyst for us to start a lot of this work. What first came to in front of us was a program through the Department of Environmental Services, who is now a strong partner with us, and they offered to teach us how to do the Adaptive Stream program, which is a statewide program.

00;09;50;19 - 00;10;25;03
Unknown
It's actually nationwide. People do it all over the country, and it was hosted through Des and Clemson. Now it's just des involved in that. And this was doing very basic titrations to find is off oxygen and pH doing salinity readings. The refractometer was doing transparency tubes to find out turbidity units. And so we we love the idea. But what it came down to was the data being gathered could not be used by anybody except for education purposes and any flagging.

00;10;25;03 - 00;10;49;20
Unknown
So poor water quality parameter would send a flag up and Des would respond to it, but they wouldn't use the data that was generated. So we wanted to do more. And so that was what prompted us to create this new level of monitoring that's a little bit higher. And we use a handheld water quality meter through Y. ASI and through the protocols that we've created is now state approved for decision making.

00;10;49;20 - 00;11;17;23
Unknown
So now this is data generated that can be used in municipalities through conversations. So so it's pretty exciting. It was also very fortunate that at the same time Doctor Ty Petty came to us, CB, who has a background in water quality work. And so, you know, it became this strong partnership of us creating data points, using citizens and him doing the analyzes of water through grab samples, looking at refill bacteria and nutrients.

00;11;17;23 - 00;11;42;19
Unknown
But this collaborative seems to be an easy sell. We now have several strong partners. And with Jake Zedek out at Brays Island through their nature program, Spring Island Institute on Spring Island with Andy Jones, Liana McNeil in our old field is partnering and then several other just very focused sighting citizens. I had one of my favorite quotes of all time is from a citizen.

00;11;42;29 - 00;12;10;13
Unknown
Her name is Linda Teague out at Cal OAC. And she said, I don't play golf. I don't play pickleball. I only like doing science and research. So give me something to do while I'm retired. So, you know, she's, you know, excellent, excellent. Yeah. It's, there's always been a strong, citizen involvement in science here, but it's it's taken years to get, kind of an infrastructure to give people that guidance because lots of people are doing things on their own.

00;12;10;13 - 00;12;32;00
Unknown
But you can't integrate that because there's no consistency. So yeah, using things from like, well, well tuned and calibrated meters to get the similar data from different points is so crucial to actually making a larger scale effort to, to integrate this material. So that's that's wonderful. So, I also wanted you to kind of highlight, I mean, you, like so many people in high school, got hooked on fishing and and outdoors and stuff.

00;12;32;00 - 00;12;44;11
Unknown
And I used to teach a lot of students who want to be wildlife biologist because they just want to fish all the time. They realize that wasn't what it was all about either. But, you've told me that working at Port Royal Sound and some of the other things you've done outside of that have changed your interest from fish to other things.

00;12;44;18 - 00;13;10;26
Unknown
And so, kind of elaborate on your personal development there. Yeah, sure. So, you know, once I began doing education, you know, and I, and I feel the same way of when I was getting my education here, you go into these programs and you're you're inundated with all of this information. And what I feel that anybody should come out with it is, is with more questions.

00;13;10;26 - 00;13;32;06
Unknown
Right. So when I was doing my education programs, I mean, you have kids asking questions that are so basic and when you can't answer them, it then prompts you to be like, well, I need to figure that out. And so it definitely started my journey of I need to know more as well as I, I took a really amazing course, which I recommend anybody in Buford County take or anybody in South Carolina take.

00;13;32;06 - 00;13;54;06
Unknown
There is a a statewide master naturalist course. And it does that same thing. It, it gives you the tools to, to figure out, you know, everything you need to know. It gives you all the in for a ton of information to, to absorb. But you're going to leave that class wanting to, to expand your knowledge on whether that's plants or birds or geography history within that as well.

00;13;54;06 - 00;14;15;15
Unknown
So yeah, my background was marine finfish, and I thought I was going to work in an aquarium. I am working in an aquarium now, but, I figured that was going to be, you know, my pride and joy by a truly as as I've grown into natural resources, it's definitely evolved. And it's it's with the help of a lot of mentors along the way as well.

00;14;15;15 - 00;14;37;11
Unknown
You know, I have local friends that we we became close friends because we had these similar interests. And so I've learned birding from Carla Chacon, and I've learned her being from Jake Zeta and, you know, getting into that botany world now, which is another deep, dark rabbit hole. But, all the same, you know, I try to find that beauty and light.

00;14;37;12 - 00;14;57;18
Unknown
It's great when you're going out into the field, into the forest. And, it's not just one thing entertaining you. It's everything. Right? So, it's been it's been a fun ride so far. One more opportunity here. Can you kind of give us a feel for how Port Royal Sound Foundation is going to continue to increase its worth and relevance to local stakeholders?

00;14;57;18 - 00;15;22;04
Unknown
What are the plans for the future? Yeah, so, I mean, just the goal, right? Our mission is to protect and preserve the Port Royal Sound for the environmental, cultural and economic well-being. So I think it's a mission that everybody can get behind. You know, 80% of our residents here are, you know, from out of state. And so they move here for the beauty of this area.

00;15;22;04 - 00;16;03;05
Unknown
But it's hard for them oftentimes to contextualize that beauty. They know it's beautiful. They don't know why it's beautiful. They don't know how the system around them functions. So our goal for that is education, right. And giving them the tools and the resources that they need to better understand how that system works. But, you know, our goal is to create this collaborative network of concerned nonprofits, government agencies, municipalities, to protect this area, for the beauty that it is, where where we all know that this area is being highly developed at a very rapid pace, you know, not seen anywhere else in the state, you know, not seen quite like it anywhere else

00;16;03;05 - 00;16;24;20
Unknown
in the country then. And so if all of these people are moving here for the beauty, but we're willing to tear down that beauty to build a house, you know, what's the point? So our efforts right now, and not to say I'm against development, right. That the economic prosperity that a lot of these people are bringing into the area is what's going to drive, you know, our success as well.

00;16;25;04 - 00;16;46;14
Unknown
But we need to be smarter about how we're doing these things. We need to be more selective about where we're developing these places. So our hope is that we can create this network, this framework of. I identifying critical habitats, identifying critical techniques to enhance the beauty of this area as alongside that development, that's occurring. Yeah.

00;16;46;14 - 00;17;02;04
Unknown
For folks who aren't familiar with the area so much, the low country is called the low country because, people jokingly say around here that Beaufort County is 50% larger at low tide, because the tidal cycle is also one of the largest on the East Coast United States until you get up to the Bay of Fundy. Yeah.

00;17;02;05 - 00;17;20;19
Unknown
So, yeah, it's, it is an impressive place with, with an amazing acreage of salt marshes. And certainly people do move here for the beauty. And, it is being impacted unfortunately, by that. So to minimize that is, is a, is a worthwhile goal, to have that development that we, we are going to have but make it smart.

00;17;20;19 - 00;17;35;11
Unknown
So, Chris, I appreciate you joining us today. It's, it's always great to talk with you. And, and learn about all the things I didn't know you were doing, and helping people in the, in the community to get to know a little bit more about the Port Royal Sound Foundation. Yeah. Thanks for having me. It was fun.

00;17;35;14 - 00;17;58;02
Unknown
So, we're joined by, Sarah Bourne, who's a junior in marine biology here at USCCB. Sarah's originally from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and she just completed an internship last summer with Port Royal Sound Foundation's maritime center. Welcome, Sarah. Thank you. So glad you could join us. As a part of the Maritime Center's mission to provide educational opportunities for residents and tourists, can you tell us something about the experience you had there last summer?

00;17;58;06 - 00;18;16;21
Unknown
Yeah, so my experience, it was a great experience, first of all. But as far as what I was doing, it kind of changed day to day. So some days depending on, you know, tides, the weather, how hot it was, what age group we had that we during summer camp, depending on what we were doing, sometimes we were doing kayaking.

00;18;16;21 - 00;18;39;04
Unknown
We were in the maritime forest exploring in the mud. Kids were getting drenched in mud. It was a fun time. We would do dock fouling and plankton towing and all of those fun things for people not from the low country stuff. My this is sticky, gooey Mary mess. So that was not familiar with until I moved here was I do, you take a couple steps out and you can sink up to your hipbone.

00;18;39;04 - 00;18;59;20
Unknown
Yes you can. So, yeah. So, you were running a series of summer camps for the student, for kids coming in different ages. It was, second grade to eighth grade kids, and they were learning all about the environment around them. We would do lessons on invertebrates and vertebrates and go all through the animals in the classifications.

00;18;59;21 - 00;19;18;06
Unknown
We would look at the fish and go fishing and then talk about the fish that we have locally and all those types of things meet the. Was it any age groups that you were your favorite? No, I don't think so. Actually, I don't think I had a favorite age group. They both had their perks. So because you can do different things in the majors.

00;19;18;07 - 00;19;32;26
Unknown
Yeah, I think maybe the older kids, because we were able to do more with them. We took the older kids kayaking, which is something I really enjoy. So we weren't able to do that with the little kids, I'm sure, but that was really fun. So maybe a little more towards the older kids I liked a little. That's that's actually that's actually good.

00;19;32;26 - 00;19;47;20
Unknown
That's usually people usually say the young kids are enthusiastic, but that's cool. What do you think was the best part of the internship for you? I mean, I know students sometimes are a little reticent about it because we require it for the degree. But, when people come back, they usually say, oh, it was a really positive thing, what you said to what?

00;19;47;24 - 00;20;14;20
Unknown
What do you think about what was the most important thing you got out of it? I think the best part were the connections I made. I'm very close with all of my supervisors and everyone I had met there at the Port Royal Sound Foundation. So that was definitely a huge perk for me. We got along very well, but also the ability to like work with animals I had never really worked with like snakes or anything like that, and I was probably my first time holding a snake or like ever caring for a snake, and I got to feed them at time.

00;20;14;21 - 00;20;34;08
Unknown
So that was really cool. You mentioned to me before something about, you know, the impact that you thought you had. Now understanding your how you could educate people. What do you. Yeah, expand on that a little bit if you would. I never really saw myself in an education field of any sorts prior to this, and honestly, I was a little scared to work with kids.

00;20;34;22 - 00;20;57;01
Unknown
But going into it, that was probably one thing that I was like, oh my gosh, this is this could be bad. But it ended up being really great. And I learned so much in like in the aspect of education and that it's something I can see myself maybe not doing full time, but doing as like little educational activities that have to do with nature or whatever it may be.

00;20;57;01 - 00;21;25;12
Unknown
Doing something like that as part of my job. Maybe not the full job, but part of it. You know, you hit the nail on the head. I think that so many people who of my generation who got involved with research, didn't think of themselves as having to advocate or communicate with the community about their, their research. And, the fact is, is science is helped greatly by people who can actually do the work and also then communicated to people who were not scientifically trained to help them familiarize it.

00;21;25;12 - 00;21;43;03
Unknown
So that's a I think that's a great aspect that you you encountered this early in your career. So, how do you think, you know, expand a little bit more about how you think this, internship might have helped your journey here? USB how it how might you said it refocused you a little bit about education. What else do you think it provided to you?

00;21;43;15 - 00;22;04;10
Unknown
I think it provided me, like, more like I feel like I already had a good set of communication skills, but I think it expanded on those skills because usually in my day to day, I'm communicating with peers and adults. So now I have those communication skills to talk and the language to use when showing younger people or teaching younger people.

00;22;04;10 - 00;22;33;02
Unknown
So I think it expanded on my communication skills, and I think it also it just expanded my knowledge of the Lowcountry, because obviously we learn about the low country in our classes, but not every day are we in the low country, like right there on the water, doing things every single day. And I think I just kind of by doing things repetitively throughout the weeks in summer camps, I was able to get a better understanding or like gain more knowledge of the low country itself and what it has to offer.

00;22;33;02 - 00;22;56;14
Unknown
Yeah, there's nothing like teaching people to learn. And, certainly you get you get the perspective of somebody who doesn't know anything, asking the questions, and you think about things in a new way, which is kind of cool. Yeah. Now I'm going to pop one on you that you weren't expecting. What was one of your, things you didn't expect to do that wasn't maybe your favorite thing you did, but it it you felt like was a valuable experience you gained through the internship.

00;22;56;17 - 00;23;21;07
Unknown
I don't think I was expecting to, towards the end of the day, I would typically go over into the maritime center itself and work at the front desk. So I don't think I was expecting to have those types of interactions with a lot of older folks and or tourist in the area, but I think, you know, being able to have those conversations and be like, oh yeah, I'm Sarah, I go to USB, this is me.

00;23;21;07 - 00;23;38;03
Unknown
This is what I'm doing here. I wasn't expecting to do that, but I love sharing. Well, it's fantastic that you were, such a great ambassador for our program because, I mean, we heard great things about your experiences there from Chris. Kiera, and other folks. And so, I'm so glad you could join us today and talk about it.

00;23;38;06 - 00;24;02;00
Unknown
Thank you for having me. We're joined now by Doctor Ty Petty, who's an associate professor of biology and head of the USBs water quality lab. Welcome, Doctor Petty. Thank you. You join Usds faculty just before Covid hit, relocated from the University of Delaware, where you were doing research kind of focused on harmful algal blooms. Tell us something about the transition from Delaware down here to the Port Royal sound system.

00;24;02;02 - 00;24;23;22
Unknown
Of course. Thank you Joe. So yeah, I was, finishing up a postdoc and then moved into a research faculty position up in Delaware. The system up there estuarine system has a lot of similarities. And being that it's an estuary and tidally influenced, Delaware Bay and their inland bays are, very different than the Port Royal sound that we have down here, Delaware Bay.

00;24;23;22 - 00;24;49;13
Unknown
Both are really, heavily freshwater influenced. Whereas portal sound is is not so much. Right. We have a trickle of freshwater coming in. So it's a very high salinity estuary, really kind of an arm of the coastal ocean. And, the inland bays in particular are very shallow water system that parts good, good bits of the inland bays, you can actually walk across because they're like feet deep.

00;24;49;13 - 00;25;07;14
Unknown
Now, he may go down to your head, but you can make it all the way across. And so that they're shallow and they get really warm. It's like a bathtub. And in the summers, which going back to the harmful algal species, is really just ripe and perfect conditions for, for growing certain types of algae, including potentially harmful species.

00;25;07;21 - 00;25;25;16
Unknown
Yeah. Shallow waters that are warm in the summertime and lead to education. We talking about which is where other things leaching and we'll call these algal blooms. And certainly we do have runoff in this port all sound, but usually associated with rainstorms and other major storms like this. Yeah. You're not a total stranger, though, to the low country.

00;25;25;18 - 00;25;44;12
Unknown
No, I, was born in Southern California, but my mother's family is been in the state of South Carolina for generations. And in middle school, we actually moved to Bluffton and lived here for a couple of years and then moved to the upstate. And so and then we also used to vacation both in, Edisto and trip on and off as I was growing up, too.

00;25;44;17 - 00;26;03;12
Unknown
So. So yeah, fairly familiar with the area. You knew what you were getting into? I did and was excited to get into it. Cool, cool. Well, you've integrated an amazing number of students into your research program. Can you share some of the details on some of that diversity in your program and where those alumni are now? Yeah, so I'm an amazing person with, the number of students that I left.

00;26;03;13 - 00;26;27;04
Unknown
No. Just kidding. One of the appeals and coming to a university like USC was to involve, heavily involved undergrads in research. And so I've been lucky. I've had some extremely hardworking and talented undergrads here at UCB have to acknowledge, Lindsey Moon and Kat Armstrong, who is technically not a USB graduate. She came for the summer from Cornell College in Iowa they were related to.

00;26;27;04 - 00;26;48;21
Unknown
So I started in 2019 of the fall, going back to Covid had a normal semester, and then that spring everything shut. We we left for spring break and never came back. Yes. And so, you know, that summer research was going to be the plan, but not really sure if that was going to happen. But luckily, Lindsey, we had we had started making plans before Covid hit that she was wanting to do a summer research.

00;26;48;21 - 00;27;05;18
Unknown
And so I was like, sure. And so she called me up at the end of the semester and kind of forced me into it because Covid was still running rampant. We had to, you know, lay out plans on how we were going to social distance in the lab, in the field. And honestly, I think we were the only three people on campus, both Bluffton and Beaufort, for much of the summer.

00;27;05;28 - 00;27;24;07
Unknown
And that's really how we started the with with Lindsey and Kat, our long term monitoring program of the Beaufort River, the broad River and the Chessie River, which originally and can has continue to be funded by the Port Royal Sound Foundation. Yeah, that's a excellent segue. But, some of the other students you've had, they've gone on to graduate school and.

00;27;24;11 - 00;27;41;19
Unknown
Yeah, right. So, Kat and she visited for the summer, and then, she loved it so much, she came back and now works at the Port Royal Sound Foundation. So really kind of proud of that. She. So I think she she loves it down here. Lindsey is doing a PhD. I'm more in the biomedical side of things.

00;27;42;02 - 00;28;02;22
Unknown
And then. Yeah. So the other students, Sam vicinities, has worked in my lab. He was really instrumental. We had a Covid. Lindsey, help us get Covid project going. But Sam and Zamani helped maintain that program. When we were this again, Covid was going wild. And so we were monitoring wastewater streams as a way to track Covid in the population.

00;28;02;22 - 00;28;31;22
Unknown
But Sam helped, manage that program. He's now doing a PhD at Arkansas State, doing really cool things with parasites, snip, parasites of snails, and another for bird populations. Yeah. Yep yep. Yeah. One stuff. Another student, Lauren. More recently is doing a master's up at called Charleston. Now, I I've, I've been fortunate enough to get small pools of money here and there that as students have graduated, I've been able to hire them on kind of temporarily as part time technicians, where they figured out what they were doing.

00;28;31;22 - 00;28;52;23
Unknown
And, and Lauren was one of them, and really the longest one that stayed in the lab. And she had I don't think she had any interest in water quality or microbiology, but she started working in it, and not exactly what she's doing at the College of Charleston is looking at bacteria populations and in placement of salt marshes. So, yeah, it's not, it's not completely evil, but we, we, we get to do things like that.

00;28;52;23 - 00;29;11;17
Unknown
But yeah, you, you, you see things for the first time in the marine lab that you never thought of before, and all sudden, it gets really interesting. You see the pluses and minuses and how that impacts so much of our lives. You mentioned before how how does your research and collaborations with Port Royal Sound kind of evolved with, with some of your thinking about the ecosystem of the larger area?

00;29;11;17 - 00;29;34;01
Unknown
Yeah, from a funding standpoint, I will always be thankful to the foundation because they really were the first entity to give me money when I came down here, besides the university with some startup funds. So they really helped jumpstart the monitoring program and have since then annually given me funding that helped support the supplies and now more recently, even funding to support a couple undergrad summer interns.

00;29;34;01 - 00;29;54;05
Unknown
So it's they've been instrumental in in making this happen. And so I've also learned a lot about the system from them, even though I was familiar with the area, you know, by no means an expert in the Port Royal sound. And so I've learned a lot about how how we think the system functions. I would argue that, there's a dearth of information and research done on, Port Royal Sound.

00;29;54;05 - 00;30;12;05
Unknown
And, so we are working to get some of what I would see is really the first papers on how does the Port Royal sound function. You know, we know we we know it's tidal. We know it's high salinity estuary with minimal amounts of freshwater except for rain events like you mentioned. But what's going on in the biology and chemistry of the system.

00;30;12;05 - 00;30;34;27
Unknown
And so we're working on that too. And, and part of that, along with the Port Royal Sound Foundation, is we are ramping up. And I say we really the Courtney common interests here at the Foundation made this happen. But we have a state approved quality assurance program that involves citizen scientist going out on right now or going out every two weeks all over the watershed collecting water.

00;30;34;27 - 00;31;02;29
Unknown
They collect environmental parameters in the fields like temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and pH, and then grab a couple bottles of water and bring it back to lab for us to process for additional parameters as a way to augment what the state already does on a monthly basis, but also get a better so higher temporal and geographic coverage of our system to to really describe what's going on in the sound, to collect baseline data for all these individual tidal rivers and creeks, as you like to talk about, half the county is is under water.

00;31;02;29 - 00;31;23;06
Unknown
And so it's hugely important. And each of these little tidal creeks and rivers have their own stressors and processes that are occurring. And so we're trying to monitor these get better baseline data so that we have something to compare it to in the future. As the county is changing, it's growing rapidly. And so we will have baseline data to to show that change or hopefully lack of change.

00;31;23;06 - 00;31;44;22
Unknown
Right. Because right now the the system seems fairly healthy and and relatively untouched compared to most estuaries on the East coast. Yeah, for now, I think it's amazing to me in my time here that, you know, when I first started here, I'd hear about people. Everybody knew the Port Royal sound was important, but we'd hear about people who had come down from Charleston and done some sampling and left and never talked to us.

00;31;44;22 - 00;31;59;26
Unknown
And and then in Coastal Carolina, we come down here and look at stuff and then leave. Now when they come down, they're actually contacting us because they know we have resources locally to partner with us. So, it's it's great that that we have evolved into the size of a campus with students, and we can actually do the primary research here.

00;31;59;26 - 00;32;25;02
Unknown
And people are seeing what we're finding out and how they can partner with us on that, rather than vice versa. So I think that's, been an amazing shift over time. So anything else you want to share about? No, I'll, I'll, piggyback on what you're just saying. I agree that, you know, we have, you know, we now have major projects and not just my lab, but other faculty on campus with, other researchers that call to Charleston, Clemson, USC, Coastal Carolina.

00;32;25;02 - 00;32;42;24
Unknown
And so it's it's exciting having all this research and and energy going on down here. And it's, it's it's growing rapidly and and in the end, it's fantastic for the students because the more projects we have going, the the more experiences they can get and they can kind of figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

00;32;42;24 - 00;33;01;27
Unknown
I, I most students, when I advise, what do you want to be when they grow up? And most of them have no idea. And I tell them that's okay. I didn't know either. But get in the lab, get in the field, get that experience and you'll figure out what you like and what you don't like. And, similarly, some of the other projects in the lab have, you know, we have talked about it on your last podcast with Prichard's Island project.

00;33;01;28 - 00;33;31;20
Unknown
You know, we got a a snake monitoring project going on in Prichard. I am by no means a snake person, much less a vertebrate biologist, but was happy to work with other naturalists in the area to get that going because it gives students the opportunity to do stuff that I personally can't provide them. But USB, you know, as a as our natural sciences department as a program can, which is helps them go on and get a jobs and go to grad school and all that good stuff and, hopefully adds on value added research, hands on experiences.

00;33;31;20 - 00;33;41;20
Unknown
Yes. As we like to hit all the buzzwords in academia. Well, thanks very much for coming on today. Thank you for having me.

00;33;41;23 - 00;34;00;19
Unknown
That's all for this episode of title. Thank you for listening. Be sure to subscribe for more episodes featuring the latest in biology research, Lowcountry discoveries, and student opportunities. If you'd like to support our work, consider making a donation or reaching out to join the conversation. If you have an idea for a future episode or would like to be a guest, we'd love to hear from you.

00;34;00;24 - 00;34;28;20
Unknown
Contact us through email at Ty, talk@usb.edu and follow us on Facebook, Instagram and blue Sky at USB title. TikTok is a production of the Sand Shark Center for Innovative Media. Executive producer Doctor Caroline Sawyer, host Doctor Joe Staton, editor Taylor DaSilva and I'm your producer Piper Davis.