The Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute (CMSI) coordinates and promotes new collaborative approaches to research that engage stakeholders and work to solve local, regional, and global challenges emerging in coastal systems.
When we think of the impacts of climate change, the words global warming, sea-level rise, and extreme weather will often come to mind. But another lesser-known, though equally serious, consequence of our anthropogenic footprint is the global acidification of our oceans.
What does it take to study the ocean? It’s a lot harder than you might think, considering most marine research happens in a lab instead of the ocean itself. Imagine you are starting a project at Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) and given only two weeks with limited funding to set up your study and collect all of the data you need to answer your research question. Data collection is an enormous task, but have you ever thought about the time it takes to replicate ocean environments on land?
Healthy ocean environments provide vital life support for roughly 3 billion people living in coastal communities worldwide. These vibrant ecosystems deliver numerous benefits to coastal communities that often rely on ocean industries such as commercial fishing for sustenance and income.
If you’ve ever had the chance to explore a rocky intertidal ecosystem, you may have noticed quickly that all of the “cool,” colorful critters tend to reside in the deeper pool areas that are underwater, even when the surrounding rocks are exposed to the air. When many people go “tidepooling,” they are usually interested in exploring these pools because there typically resides a greater diversity of species. But have you ever wondered why it is that more species live in those pools than on the bare rocks? Or why some species can survive on the bare rocks while others seemingly cannot?