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I would like to end my blog with a positive proactive note, lets continue talking to others about climate change and educate ourselves about the huge death that is happening in coral reefs. These ecosystems are crucial to many species. Reality is that our oceans are getting warmer and there is higher acidity the oceans are affecting these vulnerable population. Coral bleaching is happening and this happens when the water is too warm, everything is dying off and only the skeleton is left.

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The scientific name to this specific worm is, Riftia pachyptila also commonly known as giant tube worms. They are classified in Phylum Annelida, Class Polychaeta, Order Canalopalpata, Family Siboglinidae. They are related to tube worms commonly found in the intertidal and pelagic zones. Riftia pachyptila live on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and can tolerate extremely high hydrogen sulfide levels. As Christy continues talking about these worms she says they can reach a length of 7 feet. They have a red "plume" at the tip of their free end which is an organ for exchanging compounds with the environment. They retract this plume into the worms protective tube. Tube worms have no digestive tract but the bacteria not organic molecules in which their host worms can feed.

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Christy talked about a disease that scientist are researching on because it is killing off starfish. Picture below is one of the starfish that they collected from scientist who believe died because of the wasting disease. They think it is a virus called, Denzo. They Isolate viruses from several decades and compared it across decades and the evolution path of starfish. They think it has been affecting their reproduction size because they have data of smaller starfish. This research still continues because of the observations that have been made.

Typically the first symptom of starfish wasting disease is white lesions that appear on the surface of the starfish and spread rapidly, followed by decay of tissue surrounding the lesions. Next the animal becomes limp as the water vascular system fails and it is no longer able to maintain its internal hydrostatic balance. The body structure begins to break down, signs of stretching appear between the arms which may twist and fall off causing the species to die.

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Specimen of starfish from 1900's, this specimen was one of the first that was donated to the museum after the fires in 1906. Specimen shown below. This specific starfish is no longer found in its typical environment  because of climate change and El Niño event in 1980s. Scientist were able to prove this because through the doscumentation of detailed data that was kept scientist could prove this. This shows the importance of documentation.

Something interesting that I learned about starfish is that the water vascular system, this is a hydraulic system made up of a network of fluid-filled canals and is concerned with locomotion, adhesion, food manipulation and gas exchange. Water enters the system through the madreporite. It is linked through a stone canal, often lined with calcareous material, to a ring canal around the mouth opening. A set of radial canals leads off this; one radial canal runs along the ambulacral groove in each arm.

Also, something even more awesome, starfish can even regenerate lost arms! WOW! Imagine if humans could do that!  A cut off limb lives from stored nutrients until it regrows a disc and mouth and is able to feed again.

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The frist invertebrate that she talked about was a sponge specifically a venus basket. These are deep water dwelling organism. There classification is the following, Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Porifera, Class Hexactinellida, Order Lyssacinosa, Family Euplectellidae, Genus Euplectella, Species E. aspergillum.

Shrimp arrive in the holes found on the venus basket, mysteriously there’s one male or female in basket the basket already. The sponge often symbiotically houses two small spongicolid shrimp, a male and a female, who live out their lives inside the sponge. The shrimp breed, and when their offspring are tiny, they escape to find a new Venus' flower basket of their own. The shrimp inside the basket clean it and, in return, the basket provides food for the shrimp by trapping it in its tissues and then releasing wastes into the body of the sponge for the shrimpSomething more interesting is that it is speculated that the bioluminescent light of bacteria harnessed by the sponge may attract other small organisms which the shrimp eat. Venus' flower baskets are found in a small area of the sea nearby the Philippine Islands. Similar species occur near Japan and in other parts of the western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.

Fun fact that Christy told us is that some cultures use Venus' baskets as a present in weddings.

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To name a few coral reefs, organism sea slugs, sea urchin sand dollar, and bivalves are are ecological models. By receiving specimen from different regions and years provides information of not just the specimen but its environment. Allowing scientist to document each specimen to be able to go back into time and see what something morphologically looked like when it was once living. These specimen are called ' type specimen', used to describe a species. Those specimen defines specific species, compare it with what they have to this type and do a hypothesis by using DNA and morphological features.

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Our visit in the museum captivated my attention immediately as we entered the building. Seeing the the albino alligator was where my excitement and curiosity began.

Our tour guide Christy took us to the location in the museum where are the science is being conducted, where specimen is kept, and where the learning begins. The wet lab is where all the work gets done processing specimen. There are many things that are conserved for the 'health' of our planet. Health meaning to see the long term differences our Earth has changed in the past decades, by reading and reviewing the data saved with specimen found in Costa Rica, Bodega Bay or any where in the world!

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For this weeks field trip we went to San Francisco, to one of the coolest science museums, California Academy.