Hopkins Marine Station is the

marine laboratory Oceanography (), also known as oceanology and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynami ...

of Stanford University. It is located ninety miles south of the university's main campus, in Pacific Grove,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

(United States) on the

Monterey Peninsula The Monterey Peninsula anchors the northern portion on the Central Coast of California and comprises the cities of Monterey, Carmel, and Pacific Grove, and the resort and community of Pebble Beach. History Monterey Monterey was founded i ...

, adjacent to the

Monterey Bay Aquarium Monterey Bay Aquarium is a nonprofit public aquarium in Monterey, California. Known for its regional focus on the marine habitats of Monterey Bay, it was the first to exhibit a living kelp forest when it opened in October 1984. Its biologists ...

. It is home to ten research laboratories and a fluctuating population of graduate and undergraduate students. It has also been used for archaeological exploration, including of the Chinese-American fishing village that existed on the site before burning down in 1906.

History

Hopkins Marine Station was founded in 1892, making it the oldest marine laboratory on the US Pacific Coast, and the second-oldest in the US, after the

Marine Biological Laboratory The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is an international center for research and education in biological and environmental science. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution that was independent ...

in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It was originally named the Hopkins Seaside Laboratory and located on what is now called Lovers Point. In 1917, the laboratory was moved to its current location on Mussel/China/Cabrillo Point, and given its current name: Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University. The marine station is named after Timothy Hopkins, the founder of the city of

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

and an early trustee and long-time supporter of Stanford University.

Hopkins Marine Life Refuge

In 1931, the State of California adopted legislation designating the intertidal and subtidal areas around Hopkins Marine Station as the Hopkins Marine Life Refuge. The collection of marine invertebrates or plants is forbidden without a scientific collecting permit. The HMLR is the second-oldest Marine Life Refuge in California, after the

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

Marine Life Refuge of the

Scripps Institute of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public serv ...

. More recent legislation has been enacted to prevent chemical and thermal pollution of the water, to extend the boundaries of the refuge, and to prohibit the collection of fish, as well as invertebrates and plants, without a scientific collecting permit.

Research at Hopkins

Scientists at the marine station pursue research in a diverse range of biological fields, including

biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to organs, cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is a branch of ...

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

, developmental biology,

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

. Studies utilize a great variety of organisms, but certain particularly useful and/or charismatic ones, such as

mussels Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which ...

, squid,

tuna A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae ( mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max len ...

tunicates A tunicate is a marine invertebrate animal, a member of the subphylum Tunicata (). It is part of the Chordata, a phylum which includes all animals with dorsal nerve cords and notochords (including vertebrates). The subphylum was at one tim ...

sea urchins Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...

, and mudsuckers, have been the focus of continued research efforts. From 1963 to 1968, the station operated the

research vessel A research vessel (RV or R/V) is a ship or boat designed, modified, or equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel but others require a dedicated ...

R/V ''Te Vega'', which sailed the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by t ...

undertaking various studies, most notably of the

Deep Scattering Layer The deep scattering layer, sometimes referred to as the sound scattering layer, is a layer in the ocean consisting of a variety of marine animals. It was discovered through the use of sonar, as ships found a layer that scattered the sound and w ...

. Data from the twenty ''Te Vega'' research voyages are still cited today, and one reference work remarks that, " though ships from several nations participated in the Indian Ocean Expedition, only one has contributed significantly to marine

phycology Phycology () is the scientific study of algae. Also known as algology, phycology is a branch of life science. Algae are important as primary producers in aquatic ecosystems. Most algae are eukaryotic, photosynthetic organisms that live in a ...

, namely, the ''Te Vega'' ..""History of Algal Exploration in the Indian Ocean." In: Silva, Basson & Moe, Catalogue of the Benthic Marine Algae of the Indian Ocean. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.

Researchers

Some past and present researchers at Hopkins Marine Station: *

Albert W. Frenkel Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Alber ...

Walter Kenrick Fisher Walter Kenrick Fisher (February 1, 1878 – November 2, 1953) was an American zoologist, evolutionary biologist, illustrator and painter. He taught in Stanford University before eventually becoming Emeritus Professor in Zoology until his retireme ...

* Cornelius Van Niel * Donald Putnam Abbott *

Isabella Abbott Isabella Aiona Abbott (June 20, 1919 – October 28, 2010) was an educator, phycologist, and ethnobotanist from Hawaii. The first native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in science, she became a leading expert on Pacific marine algae. Early lif ...

Mary Belle Allen Mary Belle Allen (November 11, 1922, Morristown, New Jersey –1973, Fairbanks, Alaska) was an American botanist, chemist, mycologist, algologist, and plant pathologist, and a pioneer of biochemical microbiology. With Daniel I. Arnon a ...

* Colin Pittendrigh *

David Epel David Epel is a researcher at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California, and a Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Biology at Stanford University. Epel earned his Ph.D. at University of California Berkeley under Daniel Mazia. He a ...

* William Gilly * Dennis Powers * Mark Denny *

Stephen Palumbi Stephen R. Palumbi (born October 17, 1956, in Baltimore, MD) is the Jane and Marshall Steel Jr. Professor in Marine Sciences at Stanford University at Hopkins Marine Station. He also holds a Senior Fellowship at the Stanford Woods Institute for th ...

* Donald A St.Claire * Barbara Block * Fiorenza Micheli * Giulio De Leo * Chris Lowe * Jeremy Goldbogen *

Nettie Stevens Nettie Maria Stevens (July 7, 1861 – May 4, 1912) was an American geneticist who discovered sex chromosomes. In 1905, soon after the rediscovery of Mendel's paper on genetics in 1900, she observed that male mealworms produced two kinds of sper ...

References

External links