During a sunny low tide yesterday, Jen, Niko and Jill spent the day on the beach inside the Scripps Coastal Reserve, right next to the SIO campus. It may sound like they were playing hooky, but this is just one of the perks of being a marine ecologist: along with scientists from the National Park Service and volunteers from the Cabrillo National Monument, they spent a beautiful afternoon outside surveying intertidal animals and seaweeds. This research is part of a regular monitoring program that has been going on for several decades, with a goal of monitoring long-term patterns in coastal marine ecosystems.

 

They found a lot of seaweed and luxuriant emerald green surfgrass, plenty of mussels and barnacles, some friendly seabirds hunting for lunch, and although there were a few close calls, nobody fell into the water. Success!

Here’s a video of an octopus that we found!