The goal of this project is to produce a baseline characterization of rocky intertidal ecosystems in all of the marine protected areas and associated reference sites along the North Central Coast, to enable future comparisons of marine life inside and outside the protected areas. Surveys will be conducted in 2010 and 2011, following the same protocols used for benchmark characterization of the Central Coast study region. These protocols, in turn, replicate those used by two ongoing long-term monitoring programs: MARINe, short for Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network, for assessing communities of target species such as abalone, sea palms, mussels and sea grass; and PISCO, short for Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, for assessing biodiversity. Thirteen of the sites to be included in the baseline characterization are already part of these two monitoring programs. The data to be collected during this project will greatly facilitate efforts to understand the impacts of the new marine protected areas. Following the data collection stage of the project, statistical analyses and geospatial modeling will be conducted to compare species abundances, patterns of diversity and community structure among protected areas and reference sites. To better understand the effects of the protected areas on a broader spatial scale, scientists will analyze the regional data within the context of rocky intertidal survey data collected along the entire West Coast. The analysis will explore species and species complexes as ecosystem indicators.