Star Power: Early life stages of an endangered sea star are robust to current and near-future warming

The sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides, was a top benthic predator throughout its former range from Alaska to northern Mexico, until its populations were devastated starting in 2013 by a disease known as seastar wasting. The subsequent absence of sunflower stars from northern California waters was coincident with a dramatic ecological phase shift from healthy bull kelp forests (Nereocystis luetkeana) to barrens formed by purple sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus), a prey of sunflower stars. Modeling suggests that restoration and resilience of kelp forests can be enhanced by the return of sunflower stars. Towards this end, we run a conservation breeding program for sunflower stars in the Salish Sea of Washington, where sunflower stars have persisted in much reduced numbers. We here report on a variety of investigations into the temperature tolerance of sunflower stars, focusing on their poorly studied early life stages from their planktonic embryos and larvae, through metam..., , # Data from: Star Power: Early life stages of an endangered sea star are robust to current and near-future warming

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g9s](10.5061/dryad.msbcc2g9s)

## Description of the data and file structure

OVERVIEW

Please see Table 1 in the linked PLoS One paper, which gives a full description of each experiment outlined below.

The file names should help the readers access the relevant data. So in Exp 1:

* \"XXhrs\" in th file names refer to the various timepoints in the embryo data, \"hrs\" being hours post fertilization.
* \"clones\" is the reported data on clones
* \"Larv1\" is the bipinnaria stage data; \"Larv2\" is the brachilaria stage data\"
* \"larv\" and \"juv\" refer to the analyses of larval and juvenile characters as detailed in the text
* \"settlement\" is the reported settlement data

For Exp 3:

* \"clones\" is the reported data on clones
* the other file has the other reported data (juv size, arm number, etc)

For Exp 5:

* \"post spike\" is the growth data after the...,