Are marine reserves in Southern California working? Updates on MPA research

Citizen-Scientist Monitoring of Rocky Reefs and Kelp Forests: Creating a Baseline for the South Coast MPAs

Baseline Characterization and Monitoring of the South Coast’s Rocky Intertidal Ecosystems

Sandy beach ecosystems are the focus of this baseline monitoring study. Metrics for assessing beach ecosystem function and health include: 1) kelp-wrack coverage and composition; 2) marine bird, pinniped and macroinvertebrate abundances and 3) population abundances, biomasses and sizes of target species, including sand crabs, Pismo clams, talitrid amphipods and wrack-associated invertebrates. Human activities at the beach are being documented, and scientists are partnering with citizen-science nonprofits to develop and test protocols for training volunteers to help collect long-term beach monitoring information. In addition to the survey work, researchers are studying the ecological importance of beaches to other coastal and nearshore ecosystems, and in 2013 published findings suggesting that two tiny burrowing crustaceans closely related to the roly poly have, in the last century, vanished from most beaches in the South Coast study region. Scientists said the trend is alarming because these animals are considered indicators of beach ecosystem health. In the project’s final year, researchers will complete monthly surveys of South Coast study beaches,  analyze their data and conduct a joint workshop for teachers on refining LiMPETS protocols for sandy beaches.

In this project, researchers are estimating spiny lobster densities within six South Coast MPAs and adjacent reference sites and will relate these estimates to bottom features, such as rocky crevices and understory algae. Commercial lobster fishermen tagged and recaptured lobsters to study “spillover” from closed to open areas, lobster movements and home ranges. Spatially explicit landings data (catch records by location) are also being compiled to calculate catch-per-unit effort inside and outside the MPAs before and after they went into effect. The six MPAs and adjacent reference sites are: (1) Point Vicente State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA); (2) Laguna Beach State Marine Reserve (SMR); (3) Swami’s Beach SMCA; (4) Matlahuayl SMR; (5) South La Jolla SMR; and (6) Cabrillo SMR. Spiny lobsters support a popular recreational and valuable commercial fishery, are a key part of the southern California kelp forest ecosystem, and are a priority species for state managers. Results from this project will help assess the fishery’s stability to current harvesting practices and may be included in the spiny lobster fishery management plan now under development.

Researchers are using a remotely operated vehicle to capture video and still images of life in deep-water habitats, including submarine canyons. From the images, they are documenting the numbers and kinds of fishes and larger invertebrates and their association with bottom features. In the project’s first year, the following sites were surveyed: (1) Point Vicente SMCA and Abalone Cove State Marine Reserve (SMR) off Palos Verdes; (2) the two Farnsworth Bank SMCAs off Catalina Island; and (3) San Diego-Scripps Coastal SMCA and Matlahuayl SMR. With additional support from private donors, the ROV was also “flown” about a half-meter above the seabed through four other marine protected areas near Laguna Beach and Newport Beach in Orange County. In the project’s second year, the original three sites were resurveyed along with three new sites off San Clemente Island, with support from the US Navy. The final baseline characterization to be prepared in the project’s final year will include summary descriptions of benthic ecosystems, habitat characteristics and species assemblages in the South Coast MPAs and reference sites.

The goal of this project is to produce a baseline characterization of kelp and shallow (less than 30-meters depth) ecosystems inside and outside the South Coast MPAs through a series of standardized diver surveys of kelp forests and reference sites. The data is being used to estimate fish, kelp and benthic invertebrate densities, fish-size distributions and percent cover of smaller invertebrates and algae. Divers are also documenting substrate type (e.g., sand, cobble, bedrock and boulder) and vertical relief to establish species-habitat relationships. From these, a variety of population level (e.g., density, percent cover and biomass) and community-level (e.g., species composition and trophic-guild biomass) metrics will be calculated and compared across the MPAs and reference sites. The sampling design and protocols are based on the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) survey program, used for baseline monitoring of the Central Coast and North Central Coast MPAs.  Researchers surveyed 119 sites in 2011 and 117 sites in 2012, and are currently processing and analyzing these data.

In this project, ornithologists are evaluating whether the new MPAs are adequately protecting seabirds, specifically pelagic cormorants, Brandt’s cormorants, Western gulls, black oyster-catchers, pigeon guillemots, California least terns and California brown pelicans. They are compiling and analyzing existing records of seabird populations prior to the establishment of the South Coast MPAs and conducting new bird surveys at key sites. In the project’s first two years, scientists monitored seabird breeding colonies, rooting sites and foraging rates on Santa Cruz Island, in La Jolla (where there is also a Brandt’s cormorant colony), at Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma in San Diego and along the Palos Verdes peninsula in Los Angeles. The MPAs and special closures were established, in part, to protect roosting and breeding seabirds from passing ships, fishing lines and other human activities. As a result, scientists will be looking for evidence that the new regulations are reducing seabird behaviors like nest abandonment that indicate disturbance. During the 2012 field surveys, researchers observed high mortalities of least tern chicks. Fecal samples suggest the reproductive failure was caused by a lack of 1-year-old Northern anchovy and young rockfishes near the bird’s breeding colonies. The scientists report that 2013 appears to be a mixed year for least tern chicks, with some colonies doing better than others.  Analyses of least tern fecal pellets and other seabird monitoring data will be conducted this fall and next year. Findings from this project are being used to enhance and encourage science-based approaches to seabird conservation.

People are the focus of this baseline monitoring project. In particular, social scientists leading this project are documenting human behavior at the coast. They will observe what, where and how often, and how much people spend for three sectors of the ocean economy: (1) private recreation, which includes activities such clamming, beach walking, diving, photography, surfing and birding; (2) commercial fishing, and (3) commercial passenger fishing vessels (aka “party boats”) that may take people out fishing or whale watching. The core outcome of the project will be a series of standardized, fully documented, and quantitative socioeconomic data sets and maps. These will be used to establish an initial snapshot of human-use “indicators” for the South Coast MPAs and to assess initial changes in how people enjoy the water and commercially fish along the coast. Scientists will also attempt to identify key socioeconomic metrics and a modeling framework for understanding cause-and-effect relationships between ecosystem features, human-use patterns and MPAs.

Scientists with San Diego-based Ocean Imaging Corp. are mapping intertidal and, to a lesser extent, subtidal habitats in the South Coast study region, using multi-spectral images collected in the red, green, blue and near infrared bands.  These imaging data are being combined with bathymetric maps, produced using LiDAR data collected by Fugro EarthData for a California Coastal Conservancy-funded project. The result is the ability to map sandy beaches, surf-grass meadows, kelp canopies, algae-covered rocks and bare-rock habitats at 1-meter resolutions. In the project’s final year, raw image data files (calibrated and mosaicked) and GIS-compatible substrate classification files, among other metadata packages, will be made publicly available the MPA Monitoring Enterprise’s data server and on DVD.