Use of Estuarine, Intertidal, and Subtidal Habitats by Seabirds, California South Coast MPA Baseline Study, 2011 to 2013

Seabirds are long-lived, upper trophic level predators that are integral components of marine ecosystems. During the breeding season, seabirds are central place foragers and must return to their nests to incubate eggs and provision young throughout the day. As such, they have limited foraging ranges during that time and will benefit from protected areas within these ranges. Marine protected areas (MPAs) can provide both direct and indirect benefits to seabirds. Direct benefits involve reducing the direct interactions seabirds have with humans like incidental take and gear entanglement as well as human- caused disturbance to breeding and roosting sites. Indirect benefits involve reducing competition with humans for prey resources. Many coastally breeding seabirds rely on juvenile age classes of fished species. Decreases in adult fish catch can lead to increased spawning biomass and, thus, more seabird prey. Herein, we summarize the results of baseline seabird monitoring within the South Coast Study Region (SCSR) of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in 2012-2013. The long-term objectives of our monitoring are to 1) document how seabirds are using coastal and nearshore habitats in relation to newly established MPAs and 2) develop seabirds as indicators to study the processes (e.g., recruitment) impacting change resulting from MPA establishment, including changes in nearshore fish and invertebrate populations and human use patterns that can impact seabirds.

Funding for baseline monitoring was provided by SeaGrant, Project Number R/MPA-28 (Grant No. MPA 10-049).

Data e Risorse

Campo Valore
accessLevel public
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identifier 88953cf4-1cc9-4146-afc8-c7e1970bef65
issued 2017-12-27T16:54:44.649804
modified 2018-05-15T18:18:25.872860
publisher California Ocean Protection Council
resource-type Dataset
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Gruppi
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tag
  • amerigeo
  • amerigeoss
  • baseline
  • biota
  • california
  • california-ocean-protection-council
  • ckan
  • commercial
  • ecological-data
  • estuarine
  • evironmental
  • fishing
  • geo
  • geoss
  • human-use
  • intertidal
  • marine-protected-area
  • monitoring
  • mpa
  • national
  • north-america
  • oceans
  • recreation
  • seabirds
  • south-coast
  • subtidal
  • united-states
isopen False
license_id notspecified
license_title License not specified
maintainer Daniel Robinett
maintainer_email drobinette@pointblue.org
metadata_created 2025-11-21T10:03:18.587506
metadata_modified 2025-11-21T10:03:18.587511
notes Seabirds are long-lived, upper trophic level predators that are integral components of marine ecosystems. During the breeding season, seabirds are central place foragers and must return to their nests to incubate eggs and provision young throughout the day. As such, they have limited foraging ranges during that time and will benefit from protected areas within these ranges. Marine protected areas (MPAs) can provide both direct and indirect benefits to seabirds. Direct benefits involve reducing the direct interactions seabirds have with humans like incidental take and gear entanglement as well as human- caused disturbance to breeding and roosting sites. Indirect benefits involve reducing competition with humans for prey resources. Many coastally breeding seabirds rely on juvenile age classes of fished species. Decreases in adult fish catch can lead to increased spawning biomass and, thus, more seabird prey. Herein, we summarize the results of baseline seabird monitoring within the South Coast Study Region (SCSR) of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in 2012-2013. The long-term objectives of our monitoring are to 1) document how seabirds are using coastal and nearshore habitats in relation to newly established MPAs and 2) develop seabirds as indicators to study the processes (e.g., recruitment) impacting change resulting from MPA establishment, including changes in nearshore fish and invertebrate populations and human use patterns that can impact seabirds. Funding for baseline monitoring was provided by SeaGrant, Project Number R/MPA-28 (Grant No. MPA 10-049).
num_resources 104
num_tags 27
title Use of Estuarine, Intertidal, and Subtidal Habitats by Seabirds, California South Coast MPA Baseline Study, 2011 to 2013