Email Print Share
February 24, 2023

Sea urchin populations in Florida Keys unaffected by ecosystem change

A study on sea urchins in the Florida Keys suggests that the populations of sand dollars (pictured here left and right), heart urchins (pictured center) and sea biscuits have remained stable since the 1960s despite escalating environmental stress caused by human activity.

[Research supported by U.S. National Science Foundation grants EAR 1630276 and EAR 2127623.]

Learn more in the Florida Museum of Natural History news story Sea urchins keep on trucking while other marine life languishes in the Florida Keys. (Date of image: Dec. 12, 2022; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Feb. 24, 2023)

Credit: Tobias Grun and Michal Kowalewski/Florida Museum of Natural History


Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.

Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.

Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.

Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (4.1 MB)

Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.