Angela Jones: “Mysteries of the Sea Star”

“Mysteries of the Sea Star”

At the Block Island Maritime Institute (BIMI) Tuesday, August 19th, at 7 p.m., sea star micromorphologist and star enthusiast Angela Jones presents her findings on sea star morphological variation both within and across species across a 12-year career. Her work has spanned the Northeast Pacific from Washington to Southern California, Tropical Eastern Pacific in Panama, the Caribbean, and now here in the North Atlantic. She has worked with well over 20 species of sea star and tens of thousands of individuals, which helped her become an expert on the microscopic structures that sea stars use for protection.

She has advised on National Geographic articles, been a featured scientist on the Ologies Podcast, and is an expert member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s Marine Star Specialist Group to conserve sea stars, sea lilies, and brittle stars. Beginning her research during the beginning of Sea Star Wasting Disease has taught her a lot about science as a whole, how we collect and share information, what happens when we don’t know, and what happens when we are wrong.

Angela is a PhD Candidate in Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University. Her interests are in functional micromorphology and ecology of benthic invertebrates. She is currently studying two species, Asterias rubens, the Common Sea Star, and Asterias forbesi, the Forbe’s Sea Star, in New England that overlap after a period of separation and now hybridize.

Join her for a 45-minute talk addressing these lessons and other findings from her work on the mysterious and ever-perplexing world of sea stars.