Author: Vijay Barve
Keywords: Occurrence, Specimen

Los Angeles Urban Ocean Expedition 2019

Regina Wetzer^1, Jenessa Wall^1, Adam Wall^1, N. Dean Pentcheff^1, Kathy Omura^1, Leslie Harris^1

1 Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, 90007, Los Angeles, United States

Corresponding author(s): Regina Wetzer (rwetzer@nhm.org)Jenessa WallAdam Wall (awall@nhm.org)N. Dean Pentcheff (dpentche@nhm.org)Kathy Omura (komura@nhm.org)Leslie Harris (lharris@nhm.org)

Received {date}; Revised {date}; Accepted {date}; Published {date}

Citation: Combination of authors, year of data paper publication (in parentheses), Title, Journal Name, Volume, Issue number (in parentheses), and doi of the data paper.

Abstract

In 2019 (late August to early September), the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County led a two-week expedition to the urban ocean waters of the Los Angeles region to improve our knowledge of Southern California marine biodiversity. This program brought together the best taxonomists and local collectors in an internationally recognized, intensive methodology to collect, live-identify, curate, and DNA barcode as many species as possible.

The pop-up marine science lab at AltaSea processed fresh samples from research ships and live specimens from SCUBA divers. A team of leading taxonomists assembled for the event sorted, identified, and sampled specimens for genetic analysis, all day, every day.
This also was a wonderful opportunity for the public to take a peek into a major marine research program being carried out at the coast of a major urban center.

The Los Angeles Urban Ocean Expedition was a program of the Marine Biodiversity Center at the Natural History Museum.

Keywords: Occurrence, Specimen

Project details

Project title: Diversity Initiative for the Southern California Ocean (DISCO)
Personnel: Regina Wetzer, N. Dean Pentcheff
Funding: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, and in-kind support for marine sampling provided by the City of Los Angeles Sanitation,  the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, California Science Center, and AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles.
Study area descriptions/descriptor: Coastal waters of greater Los Angeles area (intertidal to 400 m), Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California, United States of America.
Design description: Multiple sampling modalities were used with the intent of maximizing the diversity of marine invertebrate macrofauna collected. Divers sampled shallow coastal waters and offshore oil-rig substrates from boats and shore and research vessels of the City of Los Angeles Sanitation and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts sampled using Van Veen grabs. Samples were brought back fresh to the sorting lab set up at AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles (in San Pedro). There, taxonomists and volunteers live-sorted and photographed the specimens, and taxonomists did immediate identification.

The following individuals participated as taxonomists/biologists: Ralph Appy (Cabrillo Marine Aquarium), Amanda Bemis (Florida Museum of Natural History), Christine Boren (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Don Cadien (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Curtis Cash (City of L.A. Sanitation), T Chase (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Brittany Cummings (Florida Museum of Natural History), Doug Eernisse (California State University Fullerton), Bill Furlong (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Zack Gold (University of California, Los Angeles), Brent Haggin (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Leslie Harris (NHMLA — DISCO), Austin Hendy (NHMLA — Invertebrate Paleontology), Greg Jensen (University of Washington associate), Gretchen Lambert (Friday Harbor Labs associate), Kimo Morris (Santa Ana College), Norbert Lee (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Jovairia Loan (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Greg Lyon (City of L.A. Sanitation), Eve Moore (Florida Museum of Natural History), Marie Nydam (Soka University), Erin Oderlin (City of L.A. Sanitation), Kathy Omura (NHMLA — DISCO), Julie Passarelli (Cabrillo Marine Aquarium), Gustav Paulay (Florida Museum of Natural History), Dean Pentcheff (NHMLA — DISCO), Bill Power (Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County), Jennifer Smolenski (City of L.A. Sanitation), Kevin Stolzenbach (Wood Consulting), Tom Lee Turner (University of California, Santa Barbara — EEMB), Rebecca Varney (University of Alabama), Adam Wall (NHMLA — DISCO), Jenessa Wall (NHMLA — DISCO), Regina Wetzer (NHMLA — DISCO), Matt Whalen (Hakai Institute / University of British Columbia), Jessica Whelpley (Florida Museum of Natural History), Shawn Wiedrick (NHMLA — Invertebrate Paleontology).

Data published through GBIF: http://ipt.vertnet.org:8080/ipt/resource?r=lacm_lauoe2019

Taxonomic coverage

General taxonomic coverage description: Marine macro-invertebrates: 15 phyla; about half identified to species, an additional quarter to genus, the remainder identified to family or higher order ranks.
Taxonomic ranks
Kingdom: Animalia

Spatial coverage

General spatial coverage: Coastal waters of greater Los Angeles area (intertidal to 400 m), Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California, United States of America
Coordinates: 33°33'50.4''N and 33°58'58.8''N Latitude; 118°34'4.8''W and 118°6'39.6''W Longitude 

Temporal coverage: August 19, 2019 - September 1, 2019

Natural collections description

Parent collection identifier: Not applicable
Collection name: Marine Biodiversity Center
Collection identifier: urn:uuid:3f7f32da-cb96-4064-919e-8118eac80047

Methods

Method step description: Darwin core export from the collection management system.
Study extent description: Coastal waters of greater Los Angeles area (intertidal to 400 m).
Sampling description: Van Veen grabs, otter trawl, SCUBA, hand dredge, hand, and some shore collecting.
Quality control description: On-site taxonomic expertise performing determinations on live specimens. Determinations were supplemented by off-site identifications of preserved materials by domain experts.

Datasets

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Los Angeles Urban Ocean Expedition 2019
Character encoding: UTF-8
Format name: Darwin Core Archive format
Format version: 1.0
Distribution: http://ipt.vertnet.org:8080/ipt/archive.do?r=lacm_lauoe2019
Publication date of data: 2023-10-02
Language: English
Licences of use: Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License

Metadata language: English
Date of metadata creation: 2023-09-20
Hierarchy level: Dataset