California Sea Grant awards $2.3 million in funding to 10 marine research projects

California Sea Grant recently awarded $2,349,382 to support 10 research projects that investigate coastal and marine topics. New projects address regional concerns affecting California including fisheries management, consequences of ocean acidification, aquatic invasive species, and coastal erosion.

Additionally, the four West Coast Sea Grant Programs (California, University of Southern California, Oregon and Washington) are jointly funding two projects that bring together researchers from across the region to address priority social science issues.

These two-year projects were chosen through a competitive selection process that included review of their scientific merit and relevance to current marine issues by panels of outside experts.

Selected projects and the lead investigators are:

• Climate and the Santa Barbara Basin Fish Assemblage in the Last Two Millennia: Management Implications – David Checkley, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego [R/HCME-01]
• Importance Estuarine Acidification (EA) for Commercial Oyster Production and Native Oyster Restoration – Edwin Grosholz and Ann Russell, University of California, Davis [R/HCME-02]
• Determining the genetic and molecular bases of oyster resistance to an oyster-killing virus, Ostreid herpesvirus 1 – Dennis Hedgecock, University of Southern California, and Carolyn Friedman, University of Washington [R/SSFS-01]
• Context and scale of seagrass effects on estuarine acidification: An academic-industry partnership to explore mitigation potential – Tessa Hill, University of California, Davis, and Brian Gaylord and Eric Sanford, Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis [R/HCME-03]
• Ocean Forcing of San Francisco Bay: Intrusion of Upwelled Water – John Largier, Bodega Marine Laboratory, University of California, Davis [R/HCME-04]
• Geochemistry, physics, and ecology of an intermittent estuary on the California coast: a multi-disciplinary investigation into an annual organism die-off – Céline Pallud, Stephanie Carlson and Mark Stacey, University of California, Berkeley [R/HCME-05]
• The effect of sea otter reestablishment in southern California on the remnant populations and recovery of black abalone, an endangered species – Peter Raimondi, University of California, Santa Cruz [R/HCME-06]
• The Spread and Ecological Consequences of the Invasive Seaweed Sargassum horneri – Daniel Reed and Sally Holbrook, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara and Carolyn Culver, CA Sea Grant Extension [R/HCME-07]
• Spatial Redistribution of Fishing Effort: Identifying Drivers and Testing Model Predictions for Informing Expectations in Marine Spatial Planning – Crow White, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and Steven Gaines, University of California, Santa Barbara [R/RCC-03]
• Statewide high-resolution assessment of California coastal cliff erosion and retreat – Adam Young, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego [R/RCC-04]

Selected regional social science projects and the co-principal investigators are:

• The environmental and economic impacts of moorage marinas in the West Coast – Christine Bae, University of Washington, and James Moore, University of Southern California
• Scaling Up Cost-Efficient Community Engagement in Coastal Resource Management – Julia Parrish, University of Washington, Shawn Rowe, Oregon Sea Grant, and Heidi Ballard, University of California, Davis [R/SOC-04]

Available online, the 2014 Program Directory provides a comprehensive list of new and currently funded research projects and summaries.