MEDN Rocky Intertidal Monitoring

Whitaker, Stephen; Pandori, Lauren; Chan, Kenan; Zilz, Zoe

The rocky intertidal zones at Channel Islands National Park (CHIS) and Cabrillo National Monument (CABR) are valued natural resources in southern California. Since intertidal habitats are subject to both marine and terrestrial stressors, they are also very sensitive to changes in climatic conditions (e.g., heat waves, ocean acidification, and global climate change) and disturbance (e.g., oil spills, vessel groundings, and human disturbance). The rocky intertidal monitoring programs at CHIS and CABR are closely related. Monitoring of the rocky intertidal community on Anacapa Island in CHIS began in 1982. The rocky intertidal program at CABR was derived from the program at CHIS and began in 1990. The long-term monitoring programs at both parks have generated decades of data and inspired a multi-agency network of sites that includes 9 National Park units and over 170 sites between Baja California, Mexico and southeast Alaska, USA. Data collected as part of this monitoring program are designed to assess whether targeted communities in the rocky intertidal zone are changing – and if these changes are associated with visitation pressure. Data are also helpful for giving pre-damage context to assessments that follow anthropogenic disturbance events such as oil spills and vessel groundings. This Inventory and Monitoring Program is valued for the long-term perspectives the data provide, as well as the comparability of data across a large network of sites utilizing unified Multi-Agency Rocky Intertidal Network (MARINe) monitoring procedures (Engle et al. 2008).

MEDN Rocky Intertidal Monitoring

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