Rocky Intertidal Monitoring
Rocky intertidal habitat, along with harbor seals, are important marine indicators in the San Francisco Bay area. Key reasons for monitoring intertidal communities are their unique species composition and diversity and their position at the land/sea interface, which result in particular sensitivity to ongoing changes in both marine and terrestrial realms (e.g., climate change and associated changes in sea temperatures, circulation patterns, and surface elevation), shellfish harvesting, trampling, or boat wrecks. Intertidal communities are also highly vulnerable to anthropogenic stressors such as oil spills. Both Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GOGA) and Point Reyes National Seashore (PORE) have been monitoring the intertidal zone since the mid 1990’s. The parks have demonstrated the use of long-term NPS intertidal monitoring data as reference data for a natural resource damage assessments. Two examples include the a boat wreck at Bolinas Point and the more recent oil spill of over 35,000 gallons which entered the San Francisco Bay from the Cosco Busan. Intertidal habitat along the coast of Golden Gate National Recreation Area was affected by this spill.
Reports & ResourcesContact InformationMarcus Koenen
|
Monitoring ObjectivesMonitor the temporal dynamics of target invertebrate and algae species (listed in Appendix A) and surfgrasses across accessible, representative, and historically sampled rocky intertidal sites at PORE and GOGA to help assess level of impacts and changes outside normal limits of variation due to oil spills, non-point source pollution, or other anthropogenic stressors that may come from outside the parks. Determine status, trends, and effect sizes (as applies) through time for morphology, color ratios, and other key parameters describing population status (e.g., size, structure) of the selected intertidal organisms. Integrate with and contribute to a monitoring network spanning a broad geographic region, in order to evaluate trends at multiple scales, from the park to region-wide, taking advantage of greater sample sizes at broader scales. Detect and document invasions, changes in species ranges, disease spread, and rates and scales of processes affecting the structure and function of rocky intertidal populations and communities to better understand normal limits of variation.
|
|
Monitoring Protocol
|