This triggered range deviations in numerous coastal species, including gastropods, barnacles, fishes and dolphins.ĭuring those warm decades, fluctuations in the abundance of intertidal adults of Hopkins’ Rose and other nudibranchs in Central California were driven by regional oceanographic influences on currents and larval recruitment. The 1977 bloom occurred also during a weak El Niño and coincided with a major climate shift in the eastern Pacific Ocean. We’ve also had a reliable report of California Sea Hares on the outer Sonoma coast, far north of the usual range of this large herbivorous sea slug.”
Tidal pools near san francisco plus#
Both also had exceptionally abundant Okenia, plus other southern nudibranchs not typically present, including at one site the stunning purple and orange Spanish Shawl. “I remembered 1977 and decided to sample my old study sites on either side of Monterey Bay. “Last week, during routine monitoring near Morro Bay, I was astonished by the numbers of Okenia present,” Goddard said.
Zoologist Jeff Goddard, a project scientist at the Marine Science Institute and research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, equates the current population bloom of Hopkins’ Rose to the one he observed on the Central Coast starting in early 1977. Only this year, there’s been no El Niño to speak of. These are the highest numbers and northernmost records of this species seen since the strong El Niños of 19. However, in the past few weeks, researchers from UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, the Bodega Marine Laboratory and the California Academy of Sciences have reported densities of up to dozens per square meter in tide pools from San Luis Obispo to Humboldt counties.
The Hopkins’ Rose nudibranch (Okenia rosacea) is common to Southern California but found only sporadically in Central California and rarely north of San Francisco. The warm ocean temperatures that brought a green sea turtle to San Francisco in September and other southern species north of their usual ranges on the Pacific Coast have triggered a population explosion of a bright pink, inch-long sea slug in tide pools along the central and northern California coast.
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