Friday Harbor Labs Tide Bites
Posted October 8, 2020 at 4:30 am by Hayley Day
Anemones of the San Juans
By Christopher Wells
Dr. Christopher Wells completed his PhD with Dr. Ken Sebens in 2019 in the Biology Department at the University of Washington. His research was on the biology and ecology of sea anemones in the San Juan Archipelago. He is now a postdoctoral associate at the University at Buffalo, researching the recruitment and population dynamics of Caribbean octocorals. You can follow him on Twitter @the_anemone_guy.
I first heard about UW Friday Harbor Labs, the “Mecca for invertebrate zoology,” in an Invert Zoo course during my Master’s work at the University of New Hampshire. I was told that any marine biologist worth their weight in salt needs to work at FHL, so I made it my mission to get there someday. I fell in love with sea anemones in New Hampshire and frequently read papers by Dr. Kenneth Sebens, who was the director of the Labs at the time. When I interviewed to be his graduate student, he gave me a tour around the campus and I knew I needed to be there. Being able to have an office with running seawater just a stone’s-throw from the sea was my dream. Not only that, but the giant plumose anemones ( Metridium farcimen) under the docks were awe-striking; I had never seen such big anemones in my life (turns out they’re the tallest anemones in the world and the ones under the docks are small specimens!).
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Categories: Environment, Science
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