Bight ’18 pilot study to assess how acidification is impacting marine calcifiers

The Ocean Acidification element of the Southern California Bight 2018 Regional Monitoring Program has launched a pilot study examining how ocean acidification is impacting sensitive marine calcifiers in Southern California’s coastal ocean.

The pilot study, which kicked off in May, will test newly developed protocols for collecting pteropods and other marine calcifiers from the pelagic zone, and for measuring the degree to which they have been stressed by acidification. Zooplankton tows will be used to collect the organisms.

The pilot study will help prepare Bight ‘18’s Ocean Acidification element to conduct a full survey in 2020 with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, which will be administering the survey across the West Coast.