Unseen Domestic Ecosystems

This lab is an introduction to simple animals such as sponges, corals, and sea anemones. Live sea anemone samples will be available, and students will feed them to observe their movement and behavior. Defensive behaviors such as firing of nematocysts will also be directly observed. The ecology of the symbiotic relationship between cnidarians (corals and sea anemones) and Symbiodinium algae will be examined, using symbiotic and aposymbiotic sea anemones.