Dr. Bridgette Clarkston & Dr. Bridgette Clark present Seansational Seaweeds and How to Celebrate Them! Join us Friday June 7th @ the Ucluelet Community Centre.
Seaweeds are weird. Weird, but oh so wonderful. And for coastal marine ecosystems, they are vital — creating habitats, providing food, stabilizing shorelines, and looking gorgeous. This talk will explore the diversity and ecology of some of British Columbia’s most charming red, brown and green seaweeds, including recent initiatives to conserve our iconic canopy-forming kelps, Nereocystis luetkeana and Macrocystis tenuifolia (yes, the name just changed! Come find out why.). We will also touch on the growing use of iNaturalist to document our local marine flora, with tips for high-quality iNaturalist observations specific to seaweeds. Finally, we will share a growing body of free, locally-produced educational materials so that you too can spread the love of seaweeds far and wide.
(Not a ticketed event but there is limited seating.)
Dr. Bridgette Clarkston loves seaweeds and thinks you should too. Bridgette is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia and co-author of the field guide Pacific Seaweeds: A Guide to Common Seaweeds of the West Coast (Harbour Publishing). A delightful moment in a lifetime spent appreciating BC’s seaweeds was discovering a new genus of beautiful red seaweeds and naming it after the Salish Sea (Salishia). A Vancouver Island settler, Bridgette was born and raised on the unceded traditional territory of the K’ómoks First Nation, the traditional keepers of this land.
Dr. Jennifer Clark has 10+ years of research and cultivation experience of seaweeds in Canada and Australia where she focused on understanding climate change impacts on seaweeds. Although Jennifer received her PhD in Australia, the cold waters of the Pacific Northwest were calling and she returned to Canada to undertake a postdoctoral research position with the University of British Columbia, Hakai Institute . In her current role as Chief Scientist at Cascadia Seaweed, Jennifer leads the research and cultivation of kelp seed used to grow nutritious, regenerative kelp for use in agricultural products and restoration efforts.
