A team of researchers, led by a Florida State University biologist, has received a $1.1 million National Science Foundation grant to better understand how rapid and extreme warming events impact the reproduction of sea urchins.
A team of researchers, led by a Florida State University biologist, has received a $1.1 million National Science Foundation grant to better understand how rapid and extreme warming events impact the reproduction of sea urchins.
Daniel Okamoto, an assistant professor in FSU’s Department of Biological Science and principal investigator for the grant, and his team will study population effects on sea urchins from such events as El Niño as well as the long-term implications from climate change. He said the impacts on California-based sea urchins from such events have been not only dramatic but also unpredictable.
“The grant is a follow-up to try to understand what’s really driving the patterns that we’ve seen over the past 30 years,” Okamoto said.
Okamoto will collaborate on the project with Jonathan Dennis, FSU associate professor of biology; Laura Rogers-Bennett, who holds positions at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the University of California, Davis; and Rachel Simons and Stephen Schroeter, both project scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Continue reading at Florida State University.
Image via Ron McPeak.
