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Real estate underwater

Available housing is scarce in the ocean: Any hard surface is soon blanketed, as organisms from many phyla settle on the limited space.  A floating dock at a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute laboratory on the Caribbean coast of Panama hosts red algae, an aquamarine sponge, and a black sea squirt, or tunicate, called Didemnum sp. WHOI researcher Mary Carman is studying and comparing tunicates living on both sides of the Panama Canal, including at the Liquid Jungle Laboratory on Panama’s Pacific coast.
(Photo by Zachary Carman, Wesleyan University)