Flora and Fauna
From the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University Bulletin 1971
Monterey Bay is broadly open to the sea, and while the northern and southern headlands at Santa Cruz and Pacific Grove provide a degree of protection, conditions in the bay approximate those along the shore and in offshore waters on the open coast. The center of the bay is cleft by the Monterey Submarine Canyon, largest of the submarine canyons along the California coast; at the level of the mouth of the bay a cross section of the canyon is roughly similar in form and size to a section taken through the Grand Canyon in the region of the National Park. Upwelling occurs from February through midsummer, and brings with it a conspicuous spring plankton bloom. September and October are usually the warmest months; a thermocline often develops and waters from the offshore California Current system may enter the bay, bringing oceanic plankton. From November to February the Davidson Current carries water from more southerly regions into the Monterey area.
Temperature of the inshore waters generally falls within the range of 10-16°C (50-60°F), and even in the summer months most shore collectors wear hip boots and SCUBA divers wear protective wet suits. The shore and waters in the immediate vicinity of the laboratory provide a rich variety of marine life for study and investigation. Representatives of most of the invertebrate phyla are within easy reach, among which the sponges, hydroids, sea anemones, bryozoans, polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, and tunicates are particularly conspicuous and abundant. The commoner shore forms are listed in lntertidal Invertebrates of the Central California Coast by Light, Smith, Pitelka, Abbott, and Weesner (Univ. Calif. Press). The echinoderms Strongylocentrotus, Dendraster, and Patiria, the echiuroid Urechis, and the tunicates Ascidia and Ciona provide useful materials for the experimental embryologist.
More than 50 species of fishes may be taken by dipnet along the shore, and many others are available farther out. Monterey was once an important center for the sardine fishery, and commercial fishing for squid, anchovy, rockfish, and other pelagic and bottom fishes still continues. Bathypelagic fishes and invertebrates are easily obtained by midwater trawl in the Monterey Submarine Canyon, which provides depths of more than a mile within 7 miles of the laboratory. Dredging on sand or shale bottoms in shallower water provides a variety of organisms as well.
The algal flora available near the Marine Station is rich and varied, and includes not only the larger brown kelps but also a host of smaller forms listed in Marine Algae of the Monterey Peninsula by G. M. Smith and Supplement to Smith's Marine Algae of the Monterey Peninsula by Hollenberg and Abbott (both from the Stanford Univ. Press). Approximately 80 per cent of the algal species reported between Puget Sound and southern California occur in the area. Identified specimens of most species may be consulted in the G. M. Smith Herbarium at the station.
The habitats represented in the station area include granite reefs and outcroppings, protected channels and tidepools, sandy beaches, and offshore kelp beds, while within a radius of a few miles one may visit intertidal mud flats, brackish estuaries, brine pools, and protected harbor floats and pilings. Between Pacific Tides by Ricketts and Calvin, revised by Joel Hedgpeth (Stanford University Press) provides an excellent guide to the more common marine organisms characteristic of these habitats.
The student of land and freshwater life will also find an interesting and varied assemblage of forms available, due in part to the unusual variety of physiographic and climatic conditions occurring within a relatively limited area. Ponds, rivers, forest, chaparral, and grassland are readily available, and ecological studies of terrestrial organisms and communities are conducted at the Hastings Reservation, administered by the University of California, 20 miles up Carmel Valley. Howitt and Howell's paper, The Vascular Plants of Monterey County, California (Wasmann J. Biol., 22(1), 1964, obtainable at the Pacific Grove Museum) provides an up to date list of the native plants of the region.