Studies along the coasts of California and Oregon demonstrated that benthic and nearshore pelagic environments were often strongly linked via recruitment, larval transport, the flux of food for particle-feeding invertebrates, and nutrients. Hence, in order to fully understand the dynamics of these communities, and thereby derive the knowledge needed to conserve and protect them, spatial and temporal scales need to be dramatically expanded to match the scales upon which both benthic and pelagic components of the system varied. Such increases in scale also demand expansions of research scope to include a much more integrative and interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of nearshore community and ecosystem dynamics. In order to evaluate the relative importance of oceanic influences such as larval transport, recruitment, food input, and nutrients vs. that of ecological interactions in the benthic habitat, we need to determine both effects at multiple sites along the shores of the California Current ecosystem. Studies of growth of sessile invertebrates and algae are also conducted annually at multiple sites in each region.
Mussel growth is quantified as the shell increment added per year.
Barnacle growth is quantified using plexiglass settlement plates treated to cause widely-spaced settlement of juveniles. Links to nearshore oceanic conditions and processes, and to recruitment and related processes are examined by performing all studies at the same core set of study sites.