Brittany Hook, UC San Diego
The closest thing marine taxonomists have to the Olympics has gotten underway in California. But instead of racing for medals, leading scientists spent two weeks working together to catalog the extraordinary diversity of life along the state’s coastline.
This intensive biodiversity “bioblitz” marks the launch of the California Intertidal Biodiversity DNA Barcode Library Project, a multi-year statewide initiative to collect, document and genetically catalog the invertebrates and algae found in California’s intertidal zones — coastal areas where the ocean meets the land between the tides. These ecosystems are among California’s most biologically diverse and climate-vulnerable, facing increasing pressure from rising ocean temperatures and sea-level rise.
Led by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project Authority (SCCWRP) and supported by [PDF] the California Ocean Protection Council, this initiative in total brings together more than 50 researchers, students and volunteers from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Academy of Sciences, UC Berkeley and other partner organizations. The effort kicked off June 21 with collection efforts conducted at La Jolla and UC Nature’s Scripps Coastal Reserve.
The project aims to create the most comprehensive survey of intertidal taxa in California’s history — a baseline against which future monitoring can be compared — while addressing a critical gap in environmental DNA (eDNA) monitoring. That approach relies on matching genetic traces from species found in seawater and sediments to reference libraries, but those databases remain incomplete along much of the California coast, leaving many species impossible to detect.
“These bioblitzes will briefly bring together one of the world’s highest concentrations of marine taxonomists, and the catalogue we produce will serve as a model for DNA reference libraries far beyond California,” said marine biologist Greg Rouse, curator of the Benthic Invertebrate Collection at Scripps Oceanography and one of the project’s leaders. “It will set a baseline for tracking previously undocumented species and help inform the management decisions needed to protect these intertidal ecosystems.”
In San Diego, teams conducted fieldwork across 23 intertidal sites stretching from Imperial Beach to Oceanside through July 4. They investigated habitats including sandy beaches, estuaries, rocky shores and even harbors and marinas, which host diverse communities of encrusting organisms and algae. Much of the work was done on land, with shallow-water scuba diving conducted at select locations, including off Scripps Pier, depending on the tides.
During each site visit, researchers collected select intertidal animals and algae, photographed specimens and preserved them using standardized methods. Specimens will then be archived in major California museums and research collections, including the Scripps Benthic Invertebrate Collection, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the California Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Herbarium, where they will remain available for future study.
Most specimens will undergo DNA barcoding — a process that generates a unique genetic identifier for each species — with further in-depth genome sequencing performed on a representative of each species. Associated tissue samples will be preserved in a long-term frozen archive that can support future genetic research and emerging technologies.
The researchers said most of the samples collected will be microscopic (think algae scrapings), while many of the charismatic tide pool species — including octopuses, lobsters, sea anemones and large crabs — will largely be left in place, with only a photograph and small tissue samples collected when pertinent.
“Every sample will be tracked, catalogued and preserved — now and for the future,” said Dean Pentcheff, a leading scientist with the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, noting that all team members are united in their respect for the organisms they study. “If you love an octopus, you should love an ascidian too, and we all do.”
The project leaders said this effort can demonstrate how large-scale DNA biodiversity surveys can be coordinated across institutions, from field collection and specimen preservation to DNA sequencing, data management and museum archiving.
The San Diego effort was the first of six sampling campaigns that will take place along the California coast over the coming year. Other targeted locations are Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey Bay, Bodega Bay and Humboldt Bay, plus a number of smaller-scale sampling events, including on the Channel Islands. In total, the project will engage approximately 100 participants over nearly two years.
“What makes this project remarkable is the scale of collaboration,” said Stephen Weisberg, executive director of SCCWRP. “By bringing together taxonomists, geneticists, museums and more, we’re creating a foundation that will support biodiversity science and conservation across California well into the future.”
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