Research Overview

Research at the Santa Barbara Coastal LTER (Left: Retrieving the Scanfish after a tow on a oceanographic cruise, Top Right: Scuba diver measuring kelp for studies of net primary production, Bottom right: Downloading data from automated sampler in a stream)

Although there is increasing concern about the impacts of human activities on coastal watersheds and nearshore marine environments, there have been few long-term studies of linkages among terrestrial, estuarine, nearshore, and oceanic habitats. We are helping to fill this gap by determining the relative contributions of land-and ocean-derived constituents in structuring kelp forest ecosystems.

Interdisciplinary studies coordinated among more than twenty investigators are designed to determine the effects of land use patterns on the distribution and movement of nutrients, sediments, organisms, and toxicants across landscapes, their transport and modification by streams and estuaries, and the effects of stream outflows and coastal ocean processes (e.g., upwelling, currents, waves, and water column productivity) on population, community, and ecosystem level processes in giant kelp forests.