Publications by authors named "Nicholas K Schooler"
Article Synopsis
- Surf zones are dynamic ecosystems that face challenges from human activities and climate change, leading to the need for effective biomonitoring techniques.
- Traditional methods like beach seines and hook and line surveys are labor-intensive and biased, while newer methods such as baited remote underwater video (BRUV) and environmental DNA (eDNA) offer less invasive and more efficient alternatives for assessing marine biodiversity.
- In a study comparing these methods, eDNA emerged as the most effective, detecting significantly more species than BRUV and seines, offering a cost-effective solution for monitoring surf zone communities in Southern California.
The coastal zone provides foraging opportunities for insular populations of terrestrial mammals, allowing for expanded habitat use, increased dietary breadth, and locally higher population densities. We examined the use of sandy beach resources by the threatened island fox (Urocyon littoralis) on the California Channel Islands using scat analysis, surveys of potential prey, beach habitat attributes, and stable isotope analysis. Consumption of beach invertebrates, primarily intertidal talitrid amphipods (Megalorchestia spp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvaluating impacts to biodiversity requires ecologically informed comparisons over sufficient time spans. The vulnerability of coastal ecosystems to anthropogenic and climate change-related impacts makes them potentially valuable indicators of biodiversity change. To evaluate multidecadal change in biodiversity, we compared results from intertidal surveys of 13 sandy beaches conducted in the 1970s and 2009-11 along 500 km of coast (California, USA).
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