Florida scrub is an ancient ecosystem, with fossil records showing its persistence in the landscape for millions of years. Florida scrub is dominated by shrubs despite occurring in areas with abundant rainfall. On a series of excessively drained sandy ridges, the biota has diversified into many unusual species, subspecies, and races. Many are restricted to Florida scrub and narrowly endemic to a small geographic range. Many are also well suited to periodic fire, which is ignited by frequent lightning strikes and fueled by flammable vegetation. Not surprisingly, Florida scrub has received a great deal of descriptive ecological study over the years. We now know quite a bit about patterns in this ecosystem. We understand the role of fire, the ways plants respond to fire, the biogeographic patterns of occurrence, the life history, demography, and behavior of some species, and the conservation status of the ecosystem and many of its component species. However, many modern approaches in ecology are just being applied to Florida scrub. Few (or no) studies exist in ecosystem ecology, herbivore/plant dynamics, dendroecology, soil nutrient dynamics, soil biota/plant interactions, belowground community structure, clonal growth, competition, or spatially explicit vegetation change. This is an exciting time for research on Florida scrub. Many new approaches are being applied for the first time in Florida scrub. These include investigations into the demographic mechanisms behind population change, the physiological basis of traits, and the ecosystem underpinnings of vegetation change. Long-term community and population datasets are bringing new synthetic insights. All these approaches are being applied to management and conservation questions. While there is a deep tradition integrating basic research and conservation in Florida scrub, new insights from studies of genetic patterns, metapopulation biology, and multiple disturbances have clear relevance for land managers, conservation planners, and agency personnel. This organized poster session includes syntheses based on datasets from physiological, demographic, and community studies. It includes studies investigating myriad mechanisms that will help explain well known patterns of change. We also have posters with new modeling and quantitative approaches. Finally, a set of posters considers how recent research is affecting land management and conservation.