Dr. Bob Podolsky: Developmental Scientist | Echinoderm Larvae and Environmental Insults | Episode 007

Dr. Bob Podolsky is the director of the Grice Marine Laboratory at the College of Charleston, and has spent his career working to unlock the secrets of the early life stages of marine invertebrates. He's on the front lines of ocean acidification, fighting every day to understand the ways in which changing oceans are putting the foundation of important marine food webs in peril. The gametes and larvae of your favorite marine organisms (sea stars anyone?) live in an alien world where minor changes in water temperature and chemistry can have massive effects on their survival, and no one knows more about this than Dr. Podolsky himself!

Here are some of our favorite quotes from this episode:

"When you have a situation of low genetic variability, you have a situation where it’s going to be hard for those populations to respond to future changes in pH." - Dr. Bob Podolsky

"Even though echinoderms seem inconsequential to human populations, their larval forms are parts of food webs that support the kinds of fisheries that humans depend on for their food." - Dr. Bob Podolsky

"People have to recognize this: that it’s not just stuff out in the ocean that you shouldn’t care about, but rather human populations that are going to be impacted by changes in the way that these ecological communities work." - Dr. Bob Podolsky

For more info on the Grice Marine Laboratory click HERE