DOI: 10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g9s
title: Data from: Star Power: Early life stages of an endangered sea star are robust to current and near-future warming

description: The sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides, was a top benthic predator
 throughout its former range from Alaska to northern Mexico, until its
 populations were devastated starting in 2013 by a disease known as seastar
 wasting. The subsequent absence of sunflower stars from northern
 California waters was coincident with a dramatic ecological phase shift
 from healthy bull kelp forests (Nereocystis luetkeana) to barrens formed
 by purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), a prey of sunflower
 stars. Modeling suggests that restoration and resilience of kelp forests
 can be enhanced by the return of sunflower stars. Towards this end, we run
 a conservation breeding program for sunflower stars in the Salish Sea of
 Washington, where sunflower stars have persisted in much reduced numbers.
 We here report on a variety of investigations into the temperature
 tolerance of sunflower stars, focusing on their poorly studied early life
 stages from their planktonic embryos and larvae, through metamorphosis and
 settlement as they transition to the benthos, and then for eight months of
 juvenile growth. Our results indicate that the optimum temperature for
 early life stage sunflower stars is more than 4°C higher than ambient
 temperatures in the Salish Sea, and that the juveniles demonstrate
 enhanced performance to a simulated marine heat wave. These results
 suggest that Salish Sea-derived sunflower stars would be robust to current
 and even near-future predicted temperatures in the south of their former
 range.
description: # Data from: Star Power: Early life stages of an endangered sea star are
 robust to current and near-future warming Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g9s](10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g9s) ## Description of the
 data and file structure OVERVIEW Please see Table 1 in the linked PLoS One
 paper, which gives a full description of each experiment outlined below.
 The file names should help the readers access the relevant data. So in Exp
 1: * "XXhrs" in th file names refer to the various timepoints in
 the embryo data, "hrs" being hours post fertilization. *
 "clones" is the reported data on clones * "Larv1" is
 the bipinnaria stage data; "Larv2" is the brachilaria stage
 data" * "larv" and "juv" refer to the analyses of
 larval and juvenile characters as detailed in the text *
 "settlement" is the reported settlement data For Exp 3: *
 "clones" is the reported data on clones * the other file has the
 other reported data (juv size, arm number, etc) For Exp 5: * "post
 spike" is the growth data after the unexpected heat spike * the other
 file has all of the relevant data for the 2 week experiment itself And For
 Exp 6: * "flip_summary" is the righting time data *
 "size_data" is the growth data we report from this experiment
 \[end of OVERRVIEW] Exp 1:  * clones_exp1_2021_for_dryad_cleaned.csv *
 emb_18hrs_exp1_cleaned.csv * emb_44hrs_exp1_cleaned.csv *
 emb_70hrs_exp1_cleaned.csv * emb_94hrs_exp1_cleaned.csv *
 emb_116hrs_exp1_cleaned.csv * Larv1_juv_char_exp1_cleaned.csv *
 Larv1_larv_char_exp1_cleaned.csv * Larv2_juv_char_exp1_cleaned.csv *
 Larv2_larv_char_exp1_cleaned.csv *
 settlement_exp1_2021_for_dryad_cleaned.csv Exp 2 *
 temp_shift_settle_exp2_2022_for_dryad_cleaned.csv Exp 3 *
 clones_exp3_2023_for_dryad_cleaned.csv *
 juv_diam_arm_number_exp3_2023_for_dryad_cleaned.csv Exp 4 *
 larv_juv_exp4_2022_summary_for_dryad_cleaned.csv Exp 5 *
 post_spike_exp5_2023_for_dryad_cleaned.csv *
 two_week_growth_exp5_2023_for_dryad_cleaned.csv Exp 6 *
 sea_star_flip_summary_exp6_2024_cleaned.csv *
 size_data_exp6_2024_cleaned.csv Spawn * time_to_spawning_2022_2023.csv
 TERMINOLOGY NOTATION For a complete glossary of terms used in these files
 (and for which experiment these terms are used in the data files), see the
 csv data file entitled "notation_table_exp_guide.csv" DATE AND
 TIME NOTATION Dates are listed as MM/DD/YYYY Times are listed as HH:MM in
 24 hr time