Siobhan Schenk

Kelp Rescue is excited to announce the publication of our 1st ever kelp restoration peer-reviewed paper! 🎉Since our start in 2021, we've been testing scientific approaches to kelp restoration, and this paper is the culmination of a huge team effort.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A transparent/white nudibranch is cruising on some pink coralline algae

I love #nudibranchs

Found this one in a #tidepool at Sooke

🦑 #intertidal

Exciting news! Journal of Phycology impact factor has increased to 3.4. Thanks to an amazing editorial team that makes this journal a high-quality publication. #phycologyfriday #seaweed #algae

Two large bladed kelps lying next to one another on an eelgrass bed. The left kelp is Saccharina latissima, with a narrower and lighter colored blade and stipe, while the right kelp is Hedophyllum nigripes, with a broad dark blade

A close up of the stipes of two large kelps. Saccharina on the top has a narrow rounded stipe, Hedophyllum nigripes on the bottom has a broad flattened stipe

Today for #phycologyfriday: two commonly confused PNW kelps next to each other, from the same site (Whiffin Spit, BC). Left is Saccharina latissima, right Hedophyllum nigripes.
#marinelife #intertidal #pnw #biology #marinebiology #science #kelp #seaweed

Halosaccion glandiforme at Whiffin Spit. This red algae fills with water, likely to prevent desiccation.

🦑 #PhycologyFriday #Intertidal #tidepools

A colony of pink sponges on the bottom of a rock. The top of the rock is colonized by barnacles

Pretty barnacles and sponges

🦑 #intertidal

Cultivation of kelp and other macroalgae is a growing industry in North America. In the well established macroalgal growing regions in Asia and Africa, macroalgal disease cause crop losses, placing a significant economic burden on growers. As kelp cultivation intensifies in North America, disease prevalence is expected to increase in tandem. Here, we describe the prevalence and bacterial community associated with a novel disease of kelp in the land based nursery stage that is characterized by bright pink spots, termed pink-spot disease. With input from the kelp-growing community through an online survey, we show that pink-spot disease has been widely observed in Canada and the United States on nursery cultivation spools of the kelps Saccharina latissima, Alaria marginata, Nereocystis luetkeana, and Macrocystis

A more accurate sentence would be: "UBC botanists describe "pink-spot disease" in kelp nurseries."

Please fix this on Twitter as well.

You can contact the corresponding author and/or UBC researcher listed on the manuscript by email before posting to avoid this in the future.

That's not what my paper says

A baby deer hunkered down and hiding in a freshly cut lawn. Long eyelashes and big ol ears

Fresh lawn fawn

A very extreme and unusual presentation of pink-spot disease on a kelp spool

For this #PhycologyFriday I'm happy to share my ✨new paper✨ about #kelp disease -> rdcu.be/ets28

Pink-spot disease occurs in kelp nurseries across North America and Europe according to our survey and we identified a bacteria (Algicola sp.) as the likely causative agent.

🦑 #aquaculture

Three unusual looking bull kelp that lack the usual pneumatocyst and stipe

Lab grown stipeless bull kelp to reduce tangling in tumble culture. Removal of the stipe before the internal cavity inflates results in the cut sealing over to form a "knot" instead of the usual pneumatocyst + stipe
#phycologyfriday #kelp #marinebiology #science #algae #seaweed

the new developments on inat inspired me to make a diagnostic thread for every insect order because there's only like 30something of them. going to try and avoid exceptions and extremely technical characteristics when possible. 🧵

A grey bunny laying on his stomach in a loaf position with his front paws barely visible. The fluff in between his ears has two finger shaped indents.

I love that after I give Hawthorne head scritches, the fur on his little forehead is all messed up.
It looks like he just woke up from the most intense nap.
*I fix it for him as the last part of the head massage ritual.

#bunny #rabbit #petpics

Part of figure 1 for the paper. There is a map of the field sites and an overview of the lab experiment. Field measurements were temperature and salinity. Lab was only salinity

My ✨new paper✨ looking at how low salinity and high temperatures alter the bacterial community of sugar #kelp was just published!

Lab and field results agree: the overall changes are small, but core taxa decrease under abiotic stress

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

#PhycologyFriday 🦑

Surfgrass and coralline algae in a tidepool with the orange nudibranch visible under the surfgrass

Close up of the nudibranch

Just a little orange #nudibranch cruising on a #surfgrass leaf.
🦑 #tidepools

A virtual flyer for an online event titled, “The What, Why, and How of Kelp Forest Restoration” with Pike Spector and Tristin Anoush McHugh. The top image is of intertwined golden brown blades of giant kelp rising towards the sun lit ocean surface. The water is blue and clear. Below is the title of the talk in white letters on a green background. To the right are stacked headshots of a blonde woman above a bearded man in a red beanie

Interested in learning more about innovate restoration and kelp forest ecology?

Join me and Tristin as we dive deep into kelp forests and explore ways to help the kelp!

#phycologyFriday #marinelife

📅 May 13 | 🕔 5–6 PM
🔗 Register: cirweb.org/calendar/kelp-forest-restoration-webinar

I will forever be haunted by this footage.

Trawling has only been filmed underwater a few times in documentary history, and never with such clarity.

What’s so heart-rending about these shots is watching how the animals don’t just get swept up — they swim for their lives.
🌎🦑🧪

They are so beautiful and I know how hard you worked to make them all!!

Seaweeds from Victoria, BC, Canada for #PhycologyFriday

A tidepool with a crustose coralline crust, limpets, surfgrass, and some Prionitis

For #PhycologyFriday this week let's celebrate #ISS25 and #tidepools. Although tidepools are a harsh environment, I love them because the still water makes it easier to see critters and algae 🦑

Varoon and I keep finding new species after publishing our paper and he will tell you all about it at his #ISS25 poster doi.org/10.1139/cjb-...

We keep updating the publicly available data linked in the manuscript with our newest survey data, so it is available for other researchers to use

The seaweed symposium tag is #ISS25

A cultivation line of sugar kelp 🦑 The seaweed symposium is an internal conference that combines academics and industry

For #PhycologyFriday I'm promoting my #ISS2025 presentations
Talk) How bacteria colonize the #Kelp Saccharina latissima throughout the farming cycle
P1) Low-salinity destabilizes the bacterial community of sugar kelp
P2) Kelp pink-spot disease is widespread and associated with the bacteria Algicola

A nudibranch with orange tips and blue stripes crawling on a bed of diatoms

Saw this little cutie while doing the monthly transect sampling yesterday!

#nudibranch 🦑

Screenshot of the birdcast migration dashboard, found at birdcast.info, showing a map of the continental United States colored by migration intensity, with a large portion of the eastern US, from Texas to souther Ohio, lit up white in the highest intensity color. The prediction says that 378 million birds are predicted to be in the air tonight, the night of April 28th 2025.

Eastern US let's fucking goooooo

We've got hundreds of millions of precious migrants pouring overhead tonight and in the next few weeks.

Get those overnight lights off, cats inside, and windows treated (to prevent collisions) to keep my bird friends alive. Get ready for spectacular birding!

Grey slug"running" away from a bumpy yellow slime mold

A slug pretending it didn't just have a #slimemold snack.

#fungifriends

A bright yellow slime mould on a log

A cute slime mould (not a fungi) from a few years ago.

#slimemould #fungifriends

Grey bunny looking scared of oyster mushrooms

Lots of oysters growing out of a bag

@varoon-supratya.bsky.social and I re-used #bunny litter to grow oyster mushrooms and it worked really well.

*We did not feed the #bunnies mushrooms

#fungifriends #rabbit

Brown algae on dark grey rocks. There is a bit of clear water left in the tide pool

For #PhycologyFriday this week I'm showcasing some Icelandic fucoids I saw back in 2016.

🦑

Tan feather with black bands.

Bluesky #birder community, do you know what #bird this feather is from? I found it today in Pacific Spirit Park (BC, Canada).

#ornithology #birdwatching