If, like me, you are fortunate enough to live near the coast in Northern California, you get to visit the tidepools. And when you do, you may notice something that looks like a pile of sand in the mid tidal zone below the mussel beds. When you venture down and touch the sand, you’ll find…
Tag: marine biology
Elusive and camera shy
In my experience, the most difficult organisms to photograph in the wild are staurozoans. Even birds in flight are easier. The problem with staurozoans is where they live. I never see them in calm, still pools, where taking pictures would be easy. Instead, they seem to like surge channels where the water constantly sloshes back…
Home, it’s where I want to be
All semester I’ve been taking my Ecology students out in the field every Friday. We’ve visited rivers, forests, natural reserves, endemic habitats, and fish hatcheries–none of which fall into my area of expertise. This year I have several students interested in various aspects of food production, natural/holistic health practices (which sometimes conflict with actual science!),…
Hangin’ out on the beach
Over the long holiday weekend a little over a week ago we drove up the coast from Morro Bay back to Santa Cruz and stopped at Piedras Blancas to visit the elephant seals. At this time of year the breeding season is over and most of the seals have returned to sea. The adult females…
I return to the field
For a number of reasons–a lingering injury to my bum knee, scheduling difficulties, and ongoing postconcussion syndrome–I missed the autumn return of the minus tides. At this time of year the lowest tides are in the afternoon, and at the end of the day I just didn’t have the energy to deal with field work….
What is essential is invisible to the eye
When I teach sponge biology to students of invertebrate zoology, I spend a lot of time describing them as phenomenal filter feeders, and suspect that most other professors do the same. There really are no animals that come close to possessing sponges’ ability to remove very small particles from the water. Sponges have this ability…
Playing in the sand, for science
This semester I am teaching a lab for a General Biology course for non-majors. I polled my students on the first day of lab, and their academic plans are quite varied: several want to major in psychology (always a popular major), some want to go into business, a few said they hope to go into…
Green
The marine macroalgae, or seaweeds, are classified into three phyla: Ochrophyta (brown algae), Rhodophyta (red algae), and Chlorophyta (green algae). Along the California coast the reds are the most diverse, with several hundred species. The browns have the largest thalli (the phycologists’ term for the bodies of algae), including the very large subtidal kelps as…
The flowers have brunch
When low tides occur at or before dawn, a marine biologist working the intertidal is hungry for lunch at the time that most people are getting up for breakfast. And there’s nothing like spending a few morning hours in the intertidal to work up an appetite. At least that’s how it is for me. Afternoon…
The other side of the Bay
Monterey Bay is shaped like a backwards letter ‘C’, with Santa Cruz on the north end and the Monterey Peninsula on the south end. The top of the ‘C’ is comparatively smooth, while the bottom is punctuated by the Monterey Peninsula, which juts north from the city of Monterey. The most striking geologic feature is…