This project employs the help of community scientists to compare fish biodiversity and abundance at two MPAs and two to provide both scientists and policymakers more information and tools to assess the role and design of MPAs in restoring economically and ecologically important fish stocks. And community scientists get hands on experience conducting cutting edge marine science while finding out what amazing fish marine life is living at your favorite beach!
More Information:
Marine protected areas (MPAs) can be powerful tools for reducing the effects of overfishing. However, important to the success of MPAs is routine biodiversity and ecosystem assessment surveys to understand their efficacy. We teamed up with Heal the Bay’s MPA Watch program which collects important human use demographics within MPAs to also collect eDNA surveys to quantify fish biodiversity and abundance across MPAs off Point Dume and Palos Verdes. This project employs the help of community scientists to compare fish biodiversity and abundance at two MPAs and two to provide both scientists and policymakers more information and tools to assess the role and design of MPAs in restoring economically and ecologically important fish stocks. And community scientists get hands on experience conducting cutting edge marine science while finding out what amazing fish marine life is living at your favorite beach!
Project Status:
Current
Currently Seeking Community Scientists?
Yes
Project Website:
https://healthebay.org/mpa/
How To Learn More:
Email Moriah Byrd (moriahbyrd@g.ucla.edu), Crystal Barajas (cbarajas@healthebay.org), Emily Parker (eparker@healthebay.org), or Dr. Katherine Pease (kpease@healthebay.org)
