Assessing Non-Native Species Prevalence Across Multiple Protection Levels in Central California
Maggie Stoffer
College of Science and Engineering
Faculty Supervisor: Andrew Chang
An intensification of stressors including climate change, habitat degradation, and overfishing have altered marine ecosystems and necessitated conservation efforts, such as the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs). MPAs take on different levels of protection based on their regulations on extractive activities, with only a subset of currently designated MPAs providing a level of protection likely to yield any meaningful conservation benefits. Invasions by non-native species (NNS) are one of the major threats to marine biodiversity. MPAs are touted as refugia for native species, but the impacts of MPAs on preventing the success of NNS remains largely understudied. Prior studies examining the relationship between MPAs and NNS offer highly variable and contradictory results. Few studies have offered a thorough or recent analysis of NNS in protected areas along the Central California coast, and no studies have examined how different protection levels may have different outcomes for NNS within this network. This study aims to describe NNS occurrences in rocky intertidal communities across multiple protection levels and compare temporal variation in NNS presence and abundance. This study provides key insights in NNS ecology and biology, which can be used to inform future management decisions.