Sentences with phrase «purple sea urchins»

Less conspicuous — but even more heavily impacted as a population — were the millions of purple sea urchins and tiny sea stars that died along a 62 - mile stretch of coast in Northern California, according to a UC Davis - led study published in the journal PLOS ONE that documents the die - off.

«Biologists discover that female purple sea urchins prime their progeny to succeed in the face of stress.»

Michael Russell at Villanova University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues studied purple sea urchins from the west coast of North America.

In a study published today in PLOS ONE, scientists spent a year observing purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, pictured above) growing on sections of sandstone, mudstone, and granite reefs that had been transported into a laboratory setting.

Purple sea urchins also provide food for shorebirds and some mammals living along the coast.

The silver - dollar - sized, six - armed sea star is a key tide - pool predator, and purple sea urchins serve as cleanup crews and recyclers for kelp detritus that washes ashore, processing the kelp into nutrients.

The simple purple sea urchin may shed light on the origins of the complex human immune system.

A new study of DNA from the lowly purple sea urchin now threatens to spoil, or at least modify, a popular explanation for how the complex immune system of people and other vertebrates originated.

STRANGE VISIONS A lab image of a juvenile purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus)-- without obvious eyes — shows an abundance of light - detecting proteins, such as c - opsins (red).

Red sea urchins (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) live well past 100 years old in the wild, while purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) make it to 50.

This story begins in the kelp forest and ends with a very important climate change message: All is not lost — at least not for purple sea urchins.

Because purple sea urchin females can condition their progeny to experience future stress, the urchins have tools at hand to respond to changes like ocean acidification.»

To find out how well evolution can keep pace with the changing environment, Melissa Pespeni at Indiana University in Bloomington and her colleagues reared purple sea urchin larvae in water of normal or raised acidity.

To find out, this evolutionary biologist, then at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., raised purple sea urchins in her lab.

Sea stars, verdant green anemones, spiny purple sea urchins, mussels, volcano shaped barnacles, turban snails, hermit crabs, sculpins and many other lovely creatures of the shallows can be admired at Yaquina Head.

The scientists documented almost 100 percent mortality of purple sea urchins and six - armed sea stars over the study area, which stretched from southern Mendocino County to Bodega Bay in Sonoma County.

Purple sea urchins have begun to recolonize the area.

In August 2011, scientists at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory walked into their labs to a strange, disturbing sight: Thousands of purple sea urchins and other marine invertebrates were dead in their tanks, which are fed directly by seawater.

After a die - off in 2011, only burrows in the bedrock remained where once thrived millions of purple sea urchins.

Intertidal zones that once looked like pools of purple held only burrows in the bedrock — telltale markers that purple sea urchins were once there.

The purple sea urchin may be able to evolve to cope with ocean acidification, but that does not mean other species will be able to mimic the trick

The discovery of apparent Rag1 and Rag2 genes in the purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratas)-- an invertebrate — promises to shake up this idea.

They studied regenerative capacity in three species of sea urchins with long, intermediate and short life expectancies: the red sea urchin, Mesocentrotus franciscanus, one of the world's longest - lived organisms with a life expectancy of more than 100 years; the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, with a life expectancy of more than 50 years; and the variegated sea urchin, Lytechinus variegatus, with a life expectancy of only four years.

«If there's any organism we would expect to be able to adapt to something like this, it would be the purple sea urchin, because they have evolved in such a variable environment,» says Pespeni.

The day is approaching, maybe faster than he'd like, when he must ease his daughter into life off what he calls happy land, where smog - free colors are as vivid as a Van Gogh painting — the red Indian paintbrush, the sunny coreopsis flowers, the purple sea urchins.