Abstract
In spring 2014, thousands of green algal balls were washed up at Dee Why Beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Reports of algal balls are uncommon in marine systems, and mass strandings on beaches are even more rare, sparking both public and scientific interest. We identified the algal masses as Chaetomorpha linum by using light microscopy and DNA sequencing. We characterize the size and composition of the balls from Dee Why Beach and compare them to previous records of marine algal balls. We describe the environmental conditions that could explain their appearance, given the ecophysiology of C. linum.
About the authors
Julia Cooke is a lecturer in Ecology at the Open University, UK. She was awarded a PhD from Macquarie University, Sydney for her work on the functional ecology of plant silicon. Over the last 10 years, Julia has used plants trait analysis as a tool to study the ecological strategies of plants, including quantifying plant responses to climate change, understanding invasiveness, characterising growth strategies and global patterns in traits, and the use of silicon by plants.
Alistair G.B. Poore is an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales, Australia. He was awarded a PhD in Marine Ecology from the University of New South Wales for research into the ecology of evolution of marine plant-herbivore interactions. His recent research has focused on the impacts of herbivores on marine macroalgae and seagrasses, the evolution of herbivory in the Crustacea, understanding the impacts of human stressors on marine communities and the likelihood of adaptation by marine invertebrates and algae to changing ocean conditions.
Yola Metti was awarded a PhD in Phycology by the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She is a post-doctoral Research Fellow at the National Herbarium of New South Wales (Sydney) and is currently working on the Australian Laurencia complex for the Algae of Australia project (ABRS). Her research interests focus on understanding evolutionary relationships of marine algae (primarily Rhodophyta) through algal molecular systematics and traditional morphological studies.
Matthew W. Bulbert is a lecturer in Animal Behaviour at Macquarie University. His PhD investigated the behavioural ecology of the feather-legged assassin bug – an obligate ant-eater that uses a luring strategy to capture its ant-prey. His research programme focuses on the behavioural and ecological solutions that organisms adopt to mitigate the cost of conflict, with a strong interest in understanding the underlying mechanisms and evolutionary drivers responsible for predator-prey dynamics. He is also a keen natural historian with a broad interest in both fauna and flora with a bias towards to the rare, the unknown, and the exceptionally weird.
Acknowledgments
We thank Dr Nick Yee for assisting in identification of the non-dominant algae and Thomas Mortlock for generating the wave figure.
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