The potentially “successful bioblitz,” partly led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography researchers, will create a DNA barcode library of intertidal species.
La Jolla’s abundant biodiversity is well-documented but scientists are now discovering previously unknown species, due to the launch of the first large-scale effort to catalog coastal species statewide.
This biodiversity “bioblitz”, a collaboration of researchers 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 led by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project and supported by the California Ocean Protection Council, took place in San Diego June 21 through July 4, with field work throughout 23 sites from Imperial Beach to Oceanside including the tide pools near SIO in La Jolla.
The extensive effort is the inception of the California Intertidal Biodiversity DNA Barcode Library Project, a multiyear, statewide initiative to collect, document and genetically catalog the invertebrates and algae found in California’s intertidal zones (where ocean meets land between the tides), the state’s most biologically diverse and climate-vulnerable ecosystems.
Scientists first collected marine invertebrates and algae for genetic sequencing and then archived them in museums and research collections across California for future study.
Most specimens underwent DNA “barcoding” with in-depth genome sequencing and preservation for further research.
The work will inform coastal management decisions, according to SIO marine biologist Greg Rouse, one of the project leaders and curator of the SIO Benthic Invertebrate Collection.
The barcode library might also facilitate discoveries (that a single species is actually multiple species, for example) that impact decisions about protected species, Marine Protected Areas and more.
Scientists “fully expect” to find and barcode DNA for known and unknown species among the specimens catalogued, Rouse said.
Discovery is already underway: Rouse is unable to estimate the number of unknown species within the library, but has been told by taxonomists there are “definite new species.”
Unnamed species will “be archived for future taxonomists to work on,” he said. “There’s going to be multiple implications of this.”
The work also functions as a current snapshot of marine biodiversity, Rouse added.
“We know our oceans are warming [and] the distributions of species change when ocean temperatures change, so this is also a great baseline to document potential changes.”
Throughout the field work, Rouse and his colleagues were interested to find new species in La Jolla, “one of the most studied places in California and maybe the world,” he said.
“We’re finding new things in the sand grains on the rocky shore, … all very shallow water work,” Rouse said.
The field work will likely be considered a “very successful bioblitz.”
Additional surveys are planned at sites along the California coast over the next year.
