The San Francisco Estuary Institute and 5 Gyres completed a comprehensive regional study of microplastic pollution of a major urban estuary and adjacent ocean environment, sampling in stormwater, treated wastewater, surface water, sediment, and...

Results from the first 5 years of baseline monitoring of marine protected areas 2003-2008. Learn about the biological, ecological and socioeconomic conditions around the time of marine protected area (MPA) implementation at the Channel Islands....

Proceedings of the January 12, 2018 workshop to inform the development of MPA site selection for statewide long-term MPA monitoring Action Plan.

California’s MPAs are adaptively managed as a network through the MPA Management Program which consists of four focal areas: 1) outreach and education, 2) enforcement and compliance, 3) research and monitoring, and 4) policy and permitting. Within...

The Leadership Team has identified the following focal areas as key to successful management of MPAs which make up the MPA Management Program: Outreach and Education, Research and Monitoring, Enforcement and Compliance, and Policy and Permitting....

A report prepared for the California Ocean Science Trust on the first steps in developing an approach to leveraging existing monitoring programs

California recently completed the implementation of a large network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) across the state via legislation called the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA). Following implementation of MPAs in each region, the state...

State of the South Coast Region-Results from Baseline Monitoring of Marine Protected Areas 2011-2015. Learn about the biological, ecological, oceanographic, and socioeconomic conditions around the time of marine protected area (MPA) implementation...

State of the North Central Coast Region-Results from Baseline Monitoring of Marine Protected Areas 2010-2015. Learn about the biological, ecological, oceanographic, and socioeconomic conditions around the time of marine protected area (MPA)...

State of the Central Coast Region-Results from Baseline Monitoring of Marine Protected Areas 2007-2012. Learn about the biological, ecological, oceanographic, and socioeconomic conditions around the time of marine protected area (MPA)...

The primary goal of this project was to inform long-term marine protected area (MPA) monitoring efforts by gathering up-to-date socioeconomic information to illustrate historical trends, establish a post MPA baseline, and assess initial changes...

Marine ecosystems along the North Coast of California exist in a highly energetic and variable oceanographic environment that strongly influences the dynamics and structure of the diverse marine populations that call this region home (Barth and...

Reef Check California has surveyed rocky reefs and kelp forests in southern California since 2006 and has up to nine years of data from the MLPA South Coast Study Region (SCSR). The goal of this baseline monitoring project is to quantify key...

RCCA volunteer citizen scientists conducted 18 visual scuba transects at each monitoring site to survey densities and sizes of ecologically and economically important fish, invertebrate and algal species and to characterize the physical habitats....

Three remote sensing datasets were utilized to create the final substrate map products: 1) 4-banded imagery collected in June, October and November of 2012 by Keystone Aerial Mapping with its Microsoft UltraCam-X (used for 2012 intertidal and kelp...

Seabirds are long-lived, upper trophic level predators that are integral components of marine ecosystems. During the breeding season, seabirds are central place foragers and must return to their nests to incubate eggs and provision young...

To characterize the fish communities associated with nearshore rocky reef habitat, we collaborated with commercial passenger fishing vessel (CPFV) captains and volunteer anglers to conduct hook-and-line surveys in four pairs of MPA and reference...

Learn about the biological, ecological, oceanographic, and socioeconomic conditions around the time of marine protected area (MPA) implementation on the North Coast. The North Coast region includes more than 1,000 square miles of state water from...

From 2007-2016, CA Collaborative Fisheries Research Program (CCFRP) scientists and fishermen have conducted hook-and-line surveys within three Central Coast State Marine Reserves (Point Lobos, Piedras Blancas (2008 only), and Point Buchon, SMRs)...

The North Coast has 16 major estuaries that support a wide diversity of plant and animal life, including salmon and other commercially important species. The focus of this project is to describe and evaluate the ecological status of representative...

This project, Informing the North Coast MPA Baseline: Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Keystone Marine Species and Ecosystems, applies Tribal/Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (T/ITK) to inform the baseline characterization for State Marine...

We completed four distinct projects to collect baseline data at varying spatial and temporal scales. First, we used data from aerial photographic surveys conducted from 1989-2014 to investigate region-wide trends in the populations of Common...

The objectives of this baseline study of rocky intertidal habitats along the North Coast Study Region (NCSR) are to (1) produce a quantitative baseline characterization of the structure of rocky intertidal ecosystems in Marine Protected Areas...

We combined taxonomically detailed surveys of macroinvertebrates and birds with targeted sampling of regionally important focal taxa including surf zone fishes, kelp and sand crabs; physical and biological metrics of the habitat; and activities of...

Marine Applied Research and Exploration (MARE) preformed quantitative baseline surveys within the NCSR in 2014 and 2015 with the overall goal to describe the condition of three distinctive priority ecosystem features within four MPAs and their...

Here we provide one of the first systematic, “snapshot” surveys of the entire North Coast Study Region, from the Oregon border to the headland at Point Arena. Our attempt was to characterize these subtidal rocky reefs both inside of the newly...

We systematically surveyed 94 of the 122 nearshore rocky reefs in the California south coast study region (SCSR). This synoptic baseline survey was conducted at 75 individual sites in 2011 and 88 sites in 2012. In addition, we incorporate two...

Seafloor habitats deeper than 100 meters make up an estimated 29% (1840 km2) of state waters in southern California, yet they are sampled with far less frequency when compared to shallower waters due to the many challenges associated with sampling...

The South Coast Study Region (SCSR) encompasses a broad section of southern California including both mainland and island coastal regions. The exceptionally high diversity of marine life in this region is largely due to the mixing of several...

The South Coast Lobster Research Group (SCLRG) was formed in 2011 in response to interest in how MPAs may affect the abundance, size, and behavior of the California spiny lobster (Panulirus interruptus). The SCLRG is a partnership between...