Surfgrass at Hearst Beach, San Simeon, California Phyllospadix scouleri, or Scouler's surfgrass, is a flowering marine plant in the family Zosteraceae. It is native to the coastline of western North America from the Alaskan panhandle to Baja California. This slender, vivid green plant has long, flat blades. It grows in large clumps or beds exposed during low tide and submerged at high tide. It is found attached to rocks in the middle to low intertidal zones.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Phyllospadix scouleri has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
DNA specimens14
Marker genes5
GenBank sequences10
eDNA detections8
Countries2
The DNA barcodea real sequence read deposited for this species
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
★matK1★rbcL5★rbcLa★ITS4★ITS2
plant barcodefungal barcode
07Deep time~3.82 Ma lineage
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
DNA clock origin3.82 Ma TimeTree
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
DNA clock origin
How it livedPBDB
Dietphotoautotroph
08Occurrence & distribution
Record type1 618 records
Wild obs. + sensor702
Museum / vouchered839
Other77
Range
Area of Occupancy AOO2 232 km²
Depth
0–200 m sunlit6
200–1000 m twilight0
1–4 km midnight0
>4 km abyssal0
median 1 m · max 5 m · 6 records with depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Coordinate accuracy92% within 1 km
≤100 m 367≤1 km 86≤10 km 21>10 km 17
491 georeferenced · 211 without coordinates
Open the mapobservation + sensor702
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Coordinate accuracy80% within 1 km
≤100 m 102≤1 km 105≤10 km 48>10 km 5
260 georeferenced · 579 without coordinates
Open the institutions mapphysical evidence839
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
10Collections & institutions
Holding institutions32 of 49 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
Institution
Specimens
Vancouver, CA
417
San Diego, US
48
Claremont, US
32
WTUlocation not on record
32
University of Stellenboschlocation not on record
31
Santa Barbara, US
29
US
18
Calabar, NG
14
Corvallis, US
13
Arcata, US
11
Portland, US
10
Pullman, US
9
San Luis Obispo, US
8
Ann Arbor, US
8
Davis, US
6
Victoria, CA
6
Chapel Hill, US
5
Riverside, US
5
Mexico City, MX
3
Saint Louis, US
3
DOI/NPS, Little Rock Central High School National Historic Sitelocation not on record
3
GRAlocation not on record
3
Logan, US
3
University of British Columbia, Herbariumlocation not on record
2
Ensenada, MX
2
Angwin, US
2
Hakai Institutelocation not on record
2
Tacoma, US
2
Auckland, NZ
2
Fredericton Stock Culture Collectionlocation not on record
2
Université Lavallocation not on record
2
Bronx, US
1
Canadian Department of Agriculturelocation not on record
1
CASlocation not on record
1
Provo, US
1
Whitehorse, CA
1
San Jose, US
1
Austin, US
1
Moscow, US
1
Long Beach, US
1
Moscow State Universitylocation not on record
1
Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record
1
Arizona State University Biocollectionslocation not on record
1
Boise, US
1
ASUlocation not on record
1
Austin, US
1
Severin-McDaniel Insect Collectionlocation not on record
1
San Diego Natural History Museumlocation not on record
1
San Diego Natural History Museum, Herbariumlocation not on record
1
49 institutions · 751 of 839 vouchered records shown · 88 without an institution code
09Environmental DNA8 detections
Where the DNA of Phyllospadix scouleri was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Detections DNA found8
Studies independent surveys1
Countries2
Signal confidence: weakweighed across independent studies, places & mapped detections
Where its DNA was found
0 of 8 detections have coordinates
Open the map2 countries0
washed up on beachmid intertidal tidepoollow intertidal boulder/cobblePhenology=VEG
How strong is each trace?
DNA read depthRead counts were not reported for this species — the map shows presence only, not how strong each trace was.
Modelled climatemodelled
−15°Ctemperature across detection sites+40°C
Temperature median14.6 °C 11.9–18.6
Seasonal swing summer↔winter10.3 °C
Max temp (day)17.2 °C 14.8–22.3
Min temp (night)12.6 °C 9.50–16.0
Precipitation89.9 mm/mo 31.7–148
Air humidity68.1 % 60.3–69.7
Moisture balance44.0 mm/mo
Vapour deficit501 Pa 487–754
Wind speed4.30 m/s
Cloud cover36.7 % 22.6–41.7
CHELSA 1981–2010, ~9 km grid, at location & month of 5 detection points · median with p10–p90 · reflects where sampling happened, not only the true niche
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation3 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility1 522 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System96 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI8 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics14 specimens↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinesequences↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗