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    • This is a Non-Federal dataset covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov.

    Use of Estuarine, Intertidal, and Subtidal Habitats by Seabirds, California South Coast MPA Baseline Study, 2011 to 2013

    Metadata Updated: July 24, 2025

    Seabirds are long-lived, upper trophic level predators that are integral components of marine ecosystems. During the breeding season, seabirds are central place foragers and must return to their nests to incubate eggs and provision young throughout the day. As such, they have limited foraging ranges during that time and will benefit from protected areas within these ranges. Marine protected areas (MPAs) can provide both direct and indirect benefits to seabirds. Direct benefits involve reducing the direct interactions seabirds have with humans like incidental take and gear entanglement as well as human- caused disturbance to breeding and roosting sites. Indirect benefits involve reducing competition with humans for prey resources. Many coastally breeding seabirds rely on juvenile age classes of fished species. Decreases in adult fish catch can lead to increased spawning biomass and, thus, more seabird prey. Herein, we summarize the results of baseline seabird monitoring within the South Coast Study Region (SCSR) of California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in 2012-2013. The long-term objectives of our monitoring are to 1) document how seabirds are using coastal and nearshore habitats in relation to newly established MPAs and 2) develop seabirds as indicators to study the processes (e.g., recruitment) impacting change resulting from MPA establishment, including changes in nearshore fish and invertebrate populations and human use patterns that can impact seabirds.

    Funding for baseline monitoring was provided by SeaGrant, Project Number R/MPA-28 (Grant No. MPA 10-049).

    Access & Use Information

    Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. Non-Federal: This dataset is covered by different Terms of Use than Data.gov. License: See this page for license information.

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    Dates

    Metadata Created Date September 8, 2021
    Metadata Updated Date July 24, 2025

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from State of California

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date September 8, 2021
    Metadata Updated Date July 24, 2025
    Publisher California Ocean Protection Council
    Maintainer
    Identifier 88953cf4-1cc9-4146-afc8-c7e1970bef65
    Data First Published 2017-12-27T16:54:44.649804
    Data Last Modified 2018-05-15T18:18:25.872860
    Category Natural Resources, Water
    Public Access Level public
    Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
    Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
    Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
    Harvest Object Id fd27b263-00bc-47cb-955d-daaba76c4731
    Harvest Source Id 3ba8a0c1-5dc2-4897-940f-81922d3cf8bc
    Harvest Source Title State of California
    License http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash a0db10ab50ea30e4e3e2e031cfc28b60742a4351938fe01ca1f01b3c7c46862b
    Source Schema Version 1.1

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