WWU Presents: Living on the Edge: What Tide-Pool Species Tell Us

Tide-pool species withstand and adapt to extreme changes in their environments; a world transformed from bouts of extreme wet to extreme dry with coping mechanisms playing out like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. From habitat selection, change of behavior and formation of symbiotic relationships, tide-pool species tell us about survival in a shifting environment. Take a virtual tour of tide pools with a marine biologist, discuss lessons to be learned from their world, and observe the tide pool environment in the SEA Discovery Center’s touch tank. Barbara Krystal is writing an interdisciplinary dissertation, combining literature and marine biology, at the University of Washington. Her work integrates science, natural history and nature writing, and explores methods to increase our knowledge of the complexity of tide-pool ecosystems and what they teach us. She is an author of nonfiction books, an environmental planner, and a park naturalist who teaches at University of Washington and Tacoma Community College.