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This project focuses on expanding expertise in dune restoration and implementation approaches to enhance coastal resilience, restore and preserve sandy habitats against sea level rise and other potential changes.
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This project's researchers have developed a new model that will help develop strategies for effectively restoring kelp forests. The goal is to consider the ecological, socio-economic, and environmental uncertainties of this process, yielding strategies that promote the restoration of the kelp forest and revitalize local coastal economies.
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This study focused on the coastal impacts of sunlight breaking down plastic litter. Specifically, the project sought to analyze what compounds leach from plastics into the surrounding seawater and determine the impacts on the microbial community. The team successfully fabricated a light box that simulates solar UV radiation and used the light box to treat several samples of plastic with radiation. The resulting leachates were collected and used for respiration testing. The project ended upon the graduation of the primary investigator.
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This project combines methods of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge and Western-based science to understand how two non-native seaweeds may be impacting the native ecosystem. The team will engage in community conversations regarding food sovereignty and subsistence and its use in ecological management.
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There is an urgent need to understand how managed and protected marine species will shift their distributions in response to global changes. This project will focus on how habitat hotspots of highly migratory marine predators and their prey interact with human uses of the ocean, which will be critical to supporting a viable blue economy in California.
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The goal of this project is to improve our understanding of long-term changes in the wetland landscape of Northern Mission Bay in San Diego, California, especially its plant communities and how humans interact with them, to inform restoration and management.
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Horizontal levees are nature-based wastewater treatment systems where subsurface microbes remove contaminants from wastewater or reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC). This research investigates how these systems process three trace metals (Ni, Cu, and Zn) through biogeochemical processes, aiming to determine if such systems can prevent them from being a potential source of contamination.
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This research project will advance our understanding of flow-ecology relationships along the Los Angeles and Santa Clara Rivers and of community perceptions and priorities for using flow as an innovative tool for restoring coastal rivers.
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Depending on how you feel about a snake-like fish with a suckermouth full of teeth that might drink blood from other fish, the following news might make you squirm: There are likely more species of lampreys in California rivers than we knew.
