Our Crowdfunding Groups
Who We Are
We are a 2021-2022 Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IOES) Practicum team working with Dr.Nina Bednarsek to evaluate environmental and biological conditions along the Pacific coast of North America.
What Your Donations Will Do
Your donations will enable us to travel into the field to collect vital data that will give us a better understanding of conditions in the California Current System. The funds raised will be put towards booking the UCLA Zodiac, which will take us to and from field sites and supply field sampling instruments.
UCLA Zodiac Research VesselWhat Our Team Is Doing
We are using data analysis methods to evaluate biological, geological, and chemical conditions in the California Current System and to determine how these conditions affect planktonic communities. In collaboration with Dr. Bednarsek and UCLA Professor Robert Eagle, our team is investigating the effects of abiotic factors, such as temperature and aragonite saturation, on planktonic organisms. As a focus of our project, we are working on producing a Habitat Suitability Model of Dungeness crab larvae along the Pacific coast of North America. When the final model is produced, we hope to gain an understanding of how changing environmental conditions may affect Dungeness crab larvae, and planktonic communities at large.
In addition to producing a habitat suitability model, our team is working to identify planktonic organisms from photographs taken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOOA) on its West Coast Ocean Acidification (WCOA) cruise. The plankton identified will be used to compare biological communities in areas with interesting environmental conditions. Our goal is to determine whether planktonic communities are affected by gradients of physical conditions in waters affected by ocean acidification.
Image of Plankton from NOAA WCOA CruiseOur project website, created by our Communications Team, will host the end products of our research, and it can be found at this link - https://isimonito.wixsite.com/dungeness
CLICK HERE TO READ THE UCLA FOUNDATION'S DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS FOR DONORS.
Give $33 for the percentage of manmade Carbon Dioxide that is absorbed by the ocean
Oceanic plankton use carbon dioxide to produce between 50 and 80% of Earth's oxygen production.
Give $133 for the number of stations tested during NOAA's 2021 West Coast Ocean Acidification cruise.
Cover the cost of a full-day trip on the UCLA Zodiac research vessel