Channel Islands National Park Kelp Forest Monitoring Program: Annual report 2014

Channel Islands National Park (CHIS) has conducted long-term ecological monitoring of the kelp forests around San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa and Santa Barbara Islands since 1982. The original permanent transects were established at 16 sites between 1981 and 1986 with the first sampling beginning in 1982, this being the 33rd year of monitoring. An additional site, Miracle Mile, was established at San Miguel Island in 2001 by a commercial fisherman with assistance from the park. Miracle Mile was partially monitored from 2002 to 2004, and then fully monitored (using all KFM protocols) since 2005. In 2005, 16 additional permanent sites were established to collect baseline data from inside and adjacent to four marine reserves that were established in 2003. Sampling results from all 33 sites mentioned above are included in this report. Funding for the Kelp Forest Monitoring Program (KFM) in 2014 was provided by the National Park Service (NPS). The 2014 monitoring efforts utilized 49 days of vessel time to conduct 1,040 dives for a total of 1,059 hours of bottom time. Population dynamics of a select list of 71 “indicator species” (consisting of taxa or categories of algae, fish, and invertebrates) were measured at the 33 permanent sites. In addition, population dynamics were measured for all additional species of fish observed at the sites during the roving diver fish count. Survey techniques follow the CHIS Kelp Forest Monitoring Protocol Handbook (Davis et al. 1997) and an update to the sampling protocol handbook currently being developed (Kushner and Sprague, in progress). The techniques utilize SCUBA and surface-supplied-air to conduct the following monitoring protocols: 1 m2 quadrats, 5 m2 quadrats, band transects, random point contacts, fish transects, roving diver fish counts, video transects, size frequency measurements, and artificial recruitment modules. Hourly temperature data were collected using remote temperature loggers at 32 sites, the exception being Miracle Mile where there is no temperature logger installed. This annual report contains a brief description of each site including any notable observations or anomalies, a summary of methods used, and monitoring results for 2014. All the data collected during 2014 can be found in the appendices and in an Excel workbook on the NPS Integrated Resource Management Applications (IRMA) portal. In the 2013 annual report (Sprague et al. 2020) several changes were made to the appendices. Previously, annual report density and percent cover data tables only included the current year’s data. Now, density and percent cover data are presented in graphical format and include all years of available monitoring data. Roving diver fish count (RDFC), fish size frequency, natural habitat size frequency, and Artificial Recruitment Module (ARM) size frequency data are now stored on IRMA at https://irma.nps. gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2259651. The temperature data graphs in Appendix L include the same graphs that were used in past reports, but include additional violin plot sections that compare monthly means from the current year to past years. In addition to the changes listed above, the layout of the discussion section was reordered by species instead of by site. The status of kelp forests differed among the five park islands. This is a result of a combination of factors including but not limited to, oceanography, biogeography and associated differences in species abundance and composition, as well as sport and commercial fishing pressure. All 33 permanent sites were established in areas that had or were historically known to have had kelp forests in the past. In 2014, 15 of the 33 sites monitored were characterized as developing kelp forest, kelp forest or mature kelp forest. In addition, three sites were in a state of transition. Two sites were part kelp forest and part dominated by Strongylocentrotus purpuratus.