At the Bodega Marine Lab, Eric Sanford studies sea stars and mussels to determine how climate change will affect ecosystems along the California coast.
“Our results suggest that if during the summertime there are more warm events, which is what’s predicted by climate models to occur along the California coast, then this can have a really big effect on these marine ecosystems. What we found is that sea stars are actually really sensitive to small changes in temperature, so if the sea stars experience these moderately warm low tides, they get really stressed out and they consume fewer mussels and end up growing a lot less.” – Eric Sanford, UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab