Richard Turner, professor emeritus of biological sciences, ran the Florida Association of Aquatic Biologists’ Fall 2024 Marine Taxonomy Workshop in November alongside Janessa Fletcher from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Over four days, they taught attendees how to identify Florida’s many shallow-water echinoderms.
Florida’s coastal areas host more than 210 species of shallow-water echinoderms, which are seafloor animals such as starfish, sea urchins and sand dollars. They are often a dominant presence in marine ecosystems, Turner said. The workshop included six presentations that broke down the characteristics of each individual species followed by a chance to examine and practice identifying both Turner’s and Fletcher’s collections of specimens.
Attendees came from a variety of workplaces, including environmental consulting firms, museums and state agencies responsible for identifying seafloor animals collected in surveys and for conducting dietary studies of marine fish.
The workshop, which happened at University of Tampa Marine Science Center, was organized by Florida Tech alum David Karlen ‘93. While Turner wasn’t his advisor, he said he hired Karlen to help study echinoderms that were collected off the east coast of Florida during Project SEAMAP in the 1980s.
