It's a beautiful day on the UC Davis campus
and I would like to welcome you to our virtual Biodiversity Museum Day. In this building here
we have the Marine Invertebrates Collection and we have a behind the scenes tour planned.
But before we do that let's meet some of the staff and scientists that help make this
happen, and let's discover the value of a preserved specimen collection. Hi, my name is Jay
Stachowicz and I'm a professor of Evolution and Ecology here at UC Davis. Without the oce
ans life
on land as we know it basically wouldn't exist, really wouldn't even be possible. Life evolved
first in the sea and most of the oxygen that first came into our atmosphere that allowed animal
life to evolve in the first place was produced by marine algae, and even still half the world's
annual photosynthesis occurs in the sea right now. Yet beyond the coastal and surface waters we know
really very little about a lot of marine life and that's what makes it so exciting to continue
re
searching and discovering what's going on out there. The Marine Invertebrates Collection
is comprised of living and preserved animals from the ocean. These specimens are primarily used
as teaching tools for up to 5,000 students a year, this requires organization, care, and dedication
and nobody understands that better than the staff. Hi, my name is Rachel Fazzi and I'm one of the full-time laboratory assistants for
the department of Evolution and Ecology. My name is Meghan Munn I'm a lab ass
istant
with the department of Evolution and Ecology. I've always really been drawn to marine animals
like I grew up in southern California and I spent most of my weekends and summers going to the
beach and swimming in the ocean, so getting the opportunity to work really close and hands-on with
some of these animals was definitely the highlight of my undergraduate career here, and then I've
been working here full time ever since I graduated. So I help care for some of the marine animals that
we keep, the marine invertebrates, doing things like feeding them, checking the water levels, testing
water chemistry, and doing water changes when those are needed, and for the preserved specimens I
help keep those organized so when they go out and are used in labs and things like that. I also
help maintain the specimens so making sure that they have preservation fluid, ethanol, the jars are
in good shape and that they're labeled correctly and organized down where they're stored in the
b
asement. One of the biggest parts of my job is taking care of all the live animal specimens. So
that includes things like regular feedings, so we chop up frozen squid and feed that to all
of our carnivorous animals and then we also have to culture brine shrimp, so you might
know them as sea monkeys, and we feed those to some of our filter feeding animals like
barnacles, feather duster worms, and the corals. And then another thing that we have to do
is drive out to the Bodega Marine Lab, we
collect some specimens and we bring those
back to the labs for students to study. This particular collection started as
a few specimen jars used for teaching. Over time students and researchers alike
have contributed to it. There are specimens from UC Davis' first Zoology professor Tracey I.
Storer for which Storer Hall on campus is named. Even more amazing are these anemones which are
over 40 years old. Magnificent! But what is the value of a collection? My name is Pat Randolph
and I'm an
Academic Coordinator here at UC Davis. So the importance of collections there's
a lot of different reasons I can think of. First we can think of what is a collection?
It houses specimens that were collected from a particular location at a particular time,
so it can tell us what species were where and when. One of the really interesting things I
think about keeping preserved specimens is they can kind of give you a look back through history.
So we know that the oceans are warming due to cli
mate change, so you can kind of see,
looking at our preserved specimens, you can see that maybe the animals we collect up here now
were only found in southern California in the past. On a broader scale the specimens are useful
because they provide us with something to compare things to. So a lot of our specimens are
older, 50 plus years old, and they give us something to compare modern specimens to and see
what kind of changes might be occurring within a particular organism. Well in teachin
g these
preserved specimens allow us to show students the diversity of life on Earth even when we can't
take them to a particular place or location and show them those live organisms in person. As a
researcher they provide genetic samples that allow us to see how populations have evolved in response
to a changing environment over time. It's also important in terms of thinking about evolutionary
studies as well. Thinking about variation, so variation is critical in order for a population to
evolve
by evolution, by having a collection you can spread all those specimens out on a table and understand
the variation within that particular species. And quite often in collections we'll find species
that have not ever been described by us before. Because I found four different species that way
myself. To make sure that the collection can be used for these purposes, each jar contains a
label that includes information like where, when, and by whom it was collected. The jars are
also so
rted into groups so that specimens can be quickly fetched. Most specimens are stored in the
basement where they are safe from light damage. If you've attended Biodiversity Museum Day before
you've been able to get up close and personal with our specimens, however few people have had the
opportunity to see what we are showing you next. Hello! We have a very special treat for you today
we've brought out our Humboldt Squid specimen. This is the largest specimen that we have in the
collection a
nd this is a very special specimen since it was fished up by a retired staff
member of the Bodega Marine Lab and then donated to us, so
we are very lucky to have it. Now squids are pretty interesting because they're
actually mollusks so they share the same DNA with clams, scallops, and even snails a little bit
wild isn't it. I've also brought out over here, so that you could compare, this is a
Longfin Inshore squid and as you can see pretty large compared to my hand, but
nothing compared t
o the size of Humphrey over here. So yeah we have named it. Humphrey is
about a meter long maybe more especially if you were to stretch out the tentacles over there, but
surprisingly still only a juvenile. Adult Humboldt Squid can reach 2 meters long and weigh 110 pounds.
It'd be really hard for us to find a jar that size. Now squids are predators so they eat fish,
gastropods, other squid they have no problem with that. They'll actually catch prey and the way that
they'll actually do it is
with their tentacles and their arms, and where those meet at
the very base is where their mouth is and in their mouth is a little hard beak. And this
is one that's just been removed from a large squid. And they'll actually kind of rip at
their prey with a little pinching motion and then consume it. So we can go ahead and
take a look at the beak on Humphrey over here. It's pretty cool huh? So that's what they'll use
to eat and these are actually what they'll use to capture their prey. These
are suckers and as
you can see they've got little ridges on them and that's so that they could get a better
grip on their prey. Humboldt squid hunt in groups, so they'll corral prey together and they'll
communicate with each other using chromatophores in their skin. What are chromatophores? So
they're just a specialized cell that can expand and contract and do by doing that they
can change colors. And so they'll change colors and basically use that to kind of talk to each
other. And we've
taken advantage of this visual cue by using light lures to hunt Humboldt squid.
If you've ever enjoyed calamari you might have enjoyed a piece of Humboldt squid. Next we're off
to visit our animal care room. In this room we have trays filled with hundreds of gallons of seawater,
chillers keep the water at a cool 56 degrees for our California critters. Now let's meet some cool
animals including some of the staff's favorites. So Rachel what sorts of animals do we
have for our viewers to look
at today? So in this top tray here we have a few different
kinds of marine mollusks like the nudibranchs. And we also have some marine worms so spaghetti
worms, and ragworms. And then down here we have a tray full of sand, and in this tray
we have some of our echinoderm animals. So echinoderms are a group of animals
that include sea stars, brittle stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers. So sea cucumbers are
one of my favorite animals that we have in here. They're kind of squishy and if you
look at the bottom of them here they have what are called tube feet. So their
tube feet are what they use to move around, and they're like little tiny suction cups that are
powered by water pressure so they can extend them to crawl around wherever they want and to hold on
to rocks, and the sea stars have the same thing. So they can use those to grab onto their prey and
sea stars are really interesting because when they want to eat something what they do is they
extend their stomachs outside
of their bodies, and they can partially digest all of
their food before bringing it back inside of their bodies. And their tube feet
are also really strong they can use them to pry apart mussel shells so they can stick
their stomachs inside the muscles and eat them. And then down here we have another
echinoderm. So this guy is a sand dollar and sand dollars are very similar to sea urchins
but they're just a little bit flatter and they like to burrow around in the ground. And
they're cover
ed in these kind of fuzzy spines so they feel really cool if you
get a chance to feel one someday. And then also in this tray we keep a
couple of our mollusks like the clam right here. And these guys are filter feeders so
they will eat kind of whatever is swimming through the water like little microscopic organisms or
just detritus that's floating through the water. So Meghan what animals do we have
over here to show our viewers? So up here we have our crabs, and we
have a couple of differ
ent crab species. This one right here is a Rock Crab, you can
identify him by the black tips on his claws, and next to him we have a Shore Crab. And crabs
are actually detritivores so in the wild they'll eat decaying plant and animal matter, here we feed
them squid. We're going to go ahead and feed this guy. That's a pretty excited crab. Down
in this tank we have our brittle stars. And brittle stars actually get their
name because when they're grabbed by a predator they'll go ahead and lose
one of
their arms that they can grow back later. Like most sea stars brittle stars have
tube feet in these grooves down here, but unlike some of the other species
we have these guys are much more active predators so you can kind of
see him moving around a little bit. Down here we have our hermit crabs. Hermit crabs get their name from the shell
they carry on their back, so they can't actually grow their own shell instead they
find the shells, discarded shells of mollusks. And see what thi
s guy is doing is they'll
actually tuck back in their shell and use their call like a little door to
protect themselves from predators. And since these guys don't grow
their own shells as they grow they have to find new shells that fit them better. One of my favorite animals that we have in the
lab are our jellies. And jellies are actually part of a group called cnidarians which includes
things like gorgonians, anemones, corals. And what makes the cnidarians unique is the presence of
sting
ing cells called nematocytes. When touched these nematocytes fire a harpoon type structure
that injects venom into whatever touched it which is what gives jellyfish their quote-unquote sting.
In jellies these cells are located along their tentacles which they use to capture prey, and while
some jellies have rudimentary eye spots that can sense light none of them actually have a brain.
Instead they have two nervous systems one that controls swimming and one that controls other
actions such a
s feeding and things like that. One jelly species we have in our
Invertebrate Collection here is our Mangrove Jellies, or upside down jellies. And
these jellies actually will sit upside down on the ocean floor to allow the symbiotic
algae in their tentacles to photosynthesize. One of my favorite types of animals that we have
here in the collection are the sea slugs. Sea slugs are a type of marine mollusk called a gastropod so
they're related to limpets and snails but unlike the limpets and
snails sea slugs have either
lost their shell completely or their shell is reduced to a very small plate. Gastropods have a
specialized feeding mouth part called a radula, and that's made up of a bunch of tiny tiny little
teeth that are used to cut or scrape their prey. One type of sea slug that we have are the
nudibranchs. And there's over 3000 different species of nudibranch, they come in all
sorts of different colors and patterns. Some use the coloration as camouflage and others
will us
e it as sort of a warning coloration to warn predators that they might be poisonous.
Nudibranchs have really widely varied diets so some will eat sponges, some will eat tiny
crustaceans, others can even eat other nudibranchs. There's a few species of nudibranch that are
really specially adapted to eat cnidarians, they'll actually ingest those nematocytes without
getting hurt and they'll move them into their skin and use it as their own defense against predators.
Another type of sea slug tha
t we have here are the sea hairs. And sea hairs are named because
they sort of look like a little bunny rabbit but what look like ears on the top of
their head are not actually ears at all, they're a specialized type of sensory organ
called a rhinophore that the sea hares use to sense vibrations in the water around them and
for smell. You can find sea hairs all along the California coast sometimes they're in tide pools
or occasionally you can find them on beaches too. You've just seen a lot
of different animals it's
only a small representation of the biodiversity of the sea. We've seen why biodiversity is
important for scientific research and education but why else is it important? My current research
is on the ways that maintaining biodiversity provides for healthy ecosystems. I study marine
invertebrates and also marine algae and marine plants, and I'm particularly interested in
species that are called foundation species, or those that provide the habitat on which the
rest
of the ecosystem depends they play a key role in the entire basis for marine ecosystems. Our
research shows that maintaining diversity promotes the stability and the productivity of marine
ecosystems and it does this in two ways: first many support species perform subtly different roles
and complementary roles in ecosystems in ways that means that having many species allows for greater
efficiency and resource use and greater production. Second, diversity can serve as a sort of insurance
po
licy, a buffer against ecosystem change. Think of it as providing redundancy or backups in
the case of a loss of any particular species. We are always thrilled to share our knowledge
with you and though the collections are closed this year, there are plenty of things you can
do to learn about the biodiversity around you. Well one of the easiest ways you can
interact with the natural world is doing what I'm doing, just go outside sit somewhere,
and just pay attention as to what's going on. S
o for example there's a squirrel over
there, there's a bluebird flying over there, you just want to be patient and just watch the
world go by. You can also take a walk, you can look at the weeds are in the sidewalk, the plants that
your neighbors might have, walk through a city park there's different types of plants there as well,
and I also encourage you try to learn the names of these organisms. So birds and trees are everywhere,
and once you start knowing the names of things you actually
start noticing more biodiversity out
there, you start seeing the differences between different tree species or different bird species.
If you go to the beach same thing as you walk along the beach dig in the sand, look at the rock,
you'll see animals attached to the rock. And so just start paying attention to wherever you are.
If you want to start your own collection it's very easy to do, and one of the easiest
organisms to start with would be plants, plants are everywhere. One way you can
do that is
you just take some cuttings, here's a cutting like this of a fern, and then you just put it
in a book like this, press the pages together, I might write where I got it, when I got it,
let it dry out instant collection right there. If you go to the beach you can collect shells
shells are everywhere, they're the remnants of dead animals. And just make sure the beach you're
at allows you to collect shells some beaches they don't want you to collect anything. Insects are
also anoth
er way insects are everywhere, they're very easy to collect and can start a collection
that way as well. You just want to be careful again if you're doing collections you know making sure
that you're not collecting animals illegally for example. So you can't collect a bird without
a permit, so don't do that, you can't collect mammals without permits, so don't do that.
And lastly a word of advice for young scientists. Do I have any words of wisdom for
young scientists? Well first of all it w
ould be to just emphasize that science is fun. That's
why I do what I do. I never know what we're going to discover next, I have the freedom
to think about whatever questions I want and and pursue the areas that I think as a scientist
are interesting. And probably most important and most sort of valuable to me is the opportunity
to teach the next generation, helping inspire the next generation of scientists and seeing them sort
of strike out on their own into their own careers is just so re
warding and it's by far the most
important and interesting thing that I do. Thank you for joining us for our virtual
Biodiversity Museum Day, we hope you enjoyed our content and that you check out the activities
as well as the other collections. See you next year! This video was made possible by viewers
like you. If you would like to support Biodiversity Museum Day please check out our
Crowdfunding campaign, we appreciate your support.
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