Florida, along with Hawaii, has among the two worst invasive species problems in the USA, and the state is especially susceptible to establishment by alien reptiles. Besides the large numbers of established non-native reptile species in Florida, many of these species present novel difficulties for management, or have other characteristics making effective management extremely challenging. Moreover, initiation of management action requires more than recognition by experts that a potentially harmful species has become established. It also requires the political will along with concomitant resources and appropriate personnel to develop effective methods and apply them. We review the situation in Florida, including assessment of risk for establishment, and we use a subset of prominent species to illustrate in more detail the array of invasive reptile species circumstances in Florida, including routes of introduction, impacts, and potential and implemented management actions. These examples not only highlight the severity of the invasive reptile problems in the state, but they also show the diversity in resolve and response towards them and the motivating factors.

A well-established population of Burmese pythons resides in the Everglades of southern Florida. Prompted in part by a report that identified much of southern USA as suitable habitat for expansion or establishment of the Burmese python, we examined the plausibility of this snake to survive winters at sites north of the Everglades. We integrated daily low and high temperatures recorded from October to February from 2005-2011 at Homestead, Orlando and Gainesville, Florida; and Aiken, South Carolina, with minimum temperatures projected for python digestion (16 °C), activity (5 °C) and survival (0 °C). Mean low and high temperatures decreased northward from Homestead to Aiken and the number of days of freezing temperatures increased northward. Digestion was impaired or inhibited for 2 months in the Everglades and up to at least 5 months in Aiken, and activity was increasingly limited northward during these months. Reports of overwinter survivorship document that a single bout of low and freezing temperatures results in python death. The capacity for Burmese pythons to successfully overwinter in more temperate regions of the USA is seemingly prohibited because they lack the behaviors to seek refuge from, and the physiology to tolerate, cold temperatures. As tropical Southeast Asia is the source of the Everglades Burmese pythons, we predict it is unlikely that they will be able to successfully expand to or colonize more temperate areas of Florida and adjoining states due to their lack of behavioral and physiological traits to seek refuge from cold temperatures.

This article discusses methods to determine canonical changes in graduate reading lists using a quantitative approach. Using diversity indexes common in ecology as well as simple data exploration and distance measure techniques to study levels of canonical dominance and gender equality, we compare over 90 samples from Hispanic Studies programs in the U.S. We use these indexes to study how some of these lists have changed over time and their success in representing the diversity of experiences and social groups in Spain and Latin America.

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