Marine Ecology

A scientific name means more than just Linnaean nomenclature. Names go out into the world like buoys in the ocean, mere indicators of the stories and relationships weighted below them. Grace Ha writes about discovering a new marine species — and naming it.

Read more in Bay Nature

At the Bodega Marine Laboratory and CMSI, we couldn’t be more honored and humbled to have Dr. Susan Williams a part of our community for so long. On the 26th of October, over 180 people from around the world gathered to celebrate the life of Dr. Williams.  

“I wanted to be an oceanographer since second grade, without understanding what that meant other than being fascinated by "things" that washed up on the beach during seaside family vacations.” - Dr. Susan Williams in her CMSI Spotlight.

The Morgan Lab is seeking volunteers and students needing undergraduate research credit to assist in a project to examine variation in krill abundance and its role in fisheries dynamics in the California Current System.

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In the early summer months, undergraduate Emily Meyers would rise before the sun, sometimes around 3 or 4 a.m. Keeping time by the ocean tides, she’d cart her research materials to eelgrass beds near the Bodega Marine Laboratory. 

Read more at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences

Outside Eric Sanford’s office window, foamy waters crash against rocky shores and open up to the expansive blue of the Pacific Ocean. Here, at the Bodega Marine Laboratory, Sanford and colleagues in his lab work to understand how ocean acidification is changing the ecology and evolution of the planet’s marine life.

Read more at the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences

by Jordan Hollarsmith

Under the unseasonably warm June sun with the Seattle Space Needle as our reference point, Dr. Jamey Selleck and I don our thick wetsuits. The air may be warm, but the water is still frigid. Our small boat bobs in the water as our captain, Brian Allen, scans our surroundings.

“Nothing.” He remarks with resignation.

We sigh, finish connecting our hoses and checking our gauges, then plunge into the icy water.

Covering themselves in everything from algae to urchins, crabs know how to accessorize for safety. Sponge crabs use their back pair of legs “to hold an intact sponge over their body,” says Jay Stachowicz.

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Researchers measured the physical traits and defenses of 351 butterfly fish species compared to feeding style. The fish fell into two broad groups: hunters and grazers. Hunters, with deeper bodies and bigger spines, left the reefs; grazers remained in the relative safety of the reefs.

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Dr. Susan Williams obituary was published in the Press Democrat, read it here.

A Memorial Fund has been established in her honor.  Any donations given in her name will be used to build an endowment to support graduate students working on coastal research that focuses on marine ecology.  Information on this Memorial Fund is available here.

An embedded reporter describes research at Bodega Marine Laboratory during a time when the stakes are high for marine life in an era of climate change, and where scientists are weighing the impacts as warming oceans acidify.

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