Flipping Tires and Seaweeds

I wouldn't have ever thought that plants would be as interesting as I have found them during the Marine Biology Class this quarter. I thought that my interests in Biology would lie squarely in the "Chordate" box, but I found that when our Marine Biology class went down to the dock to find the seaweeds that made their habitat there, I was surprised by how interested I was in these organisms. What had once been to me rather uninteresting piles of slimy and rubbery film now became complex structures left over from the wastes of the mesozoic. I found a red alga called "Turkish Towel," known in the Scientific community as "Chondracanthus exasperatus" which is an alga of surprisingly rich and deep purple-red that is covered in probably thousands of small, polyp-like raised bumps. These cover the towel and give it the texture of terry cloth, which is no doubt where the common name for the alga derives.
One of the most "vanilla" algae off the dock is "Ulva lactuca" which is the rather common sea lettuce. It is a striking kelly green, and floats in the current in an apathetic, 'devil-may-care' way. It doesn't seem to be too intent on latching onto anything permanent, but rather allowing itself to drift in the current to conditions of optimal light and nutrition. Since the species has flourished, this mechanism seems to have been a favorable one. I have learned that the scientific observer cannot fault an organism for a survival or reproductive strategy that serves its purpose of continued and eternal existance no matter how unorthodox.
Even though I have lived in Washington my entire life, and spent countless hours on the beaches of the sound taking note of what comes out of that mysterious aquatic abyss, I had never seen a great many of the species of seaweeds that are found off the dock. I had never before seen a Turkish Towel and I have never seen the Giant Bullkelp, Nereocystus. The kelps which fill themselves with air I find especially fascinating; how these non-sentient organisms can fill themselves with noble gasses is astonishing. Seaweeds are inappropriately named.

Posted on December 4, 2012 07:17 AM by bncantrell