Science Policy Collaborations: Optimizing Ocean Monitoring Networks for Environmental Management

Greenhouse gas emissions are disrupting ocean chemistry, ecological communities, and their dependent economies. In California, coastal oceanography exacerbates these stressful conditions. As low oxygen zones expand and waters acidify, monitoring networks remain suboptimal for ecological management under multistressor conditions. Our interdisciplinary team of scientists and managers are working to identify critical monitoring gaps for the state, with the support and opportunities created by the NSF INTERN program, and partnerships with the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC). This work integrates with prior research supported by the Lenfest Ocean Program, where we synthesized over 4.7 million publicly available measurements from buoys, vessels, sensors, and discrete water samples. Here we present a first outcome of the science-management collaboration, which includes a synthesis of literature on larval ecology and biological thresholds to assess how chemical oceanographic monitoring overlaps with the most vulnerable life stages of economically and ecologically important species. Preliminary results show that monitoring coverage is highly variable among species. Invertebrates that spawn over winter, like purple urchins, lack extensive pH or dissolved oxygen monitoring over most of their natural history and biogeographic range. Similarly, Dungeness crab larvae lack monitoring in key areas of fisheries and impending offshore wind development. The California Spiny lobster has the best coverage of all examined species, given the extensive monitoring in Southern California. Using ecology, biological thresholds, and State management priorities we demonstrate how a weighted matrix can be used to outline where, when, and how to enhance chemical monitoring.