Roletto et al. (2025)
Author Information
Jaime Jahncke and Meredith Elliott: Point Blue Conservation Science
Jan Roletto and Dani Lipski: Greater Farallones & Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries
Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies (ACCESS) is a collaborative effort of GFNMS/CBNMS and Point Blue Conservation Science. Since 2004, the ACCESS scientists have collected at-sea data on birds, marine mammals, water column health and productivity, forage species for birds and mammals, and samples for ocean acidification, environmental DNA, and phytoplankton that can lead to harmful algal blooms. Our data are used to understand status and trends of sanctuary resources, ecosystem health, and response to climate change. Typically, we conduct at-sea surveys three times a year, during the early portion of the upwelling season, peak upwelling, and post-upwelling and the transition season. In 2024, we had reduced sampling due to mechanical issues with our research vessel Fulmar.
We were not able to sample during peak seabird breeding and chick rearing in July 2024 due to issues with our research vessel.
In May 2024, on the NOAA ship R/V Bell M. Shimada, we conducted a piggyback pilot study to sample for microplastics in the water column. We have mixed opinions about collecting the samples, due to the high cost of analyses, which require clean rooms; we don’t have funding for the samples we collected. We’re hoping to find future funding and looking into how this at-sea sampling can be complementary to microplastics studies on SE Farallon Island.
Highlights of 2024 included numerous krill and small schooling fish along the 200 m isobath (e.g., the shelf break) and across the continental shelf. Following and foraging on the zooplankton and fish were numerous blue, humpback, and fin whales, Common Murres (Uria aalge), Cassin’s Auklets (Ptychoramphus aleuticus), and a variety of gulls, shearwaters, albatrosses, and jaegers. Krill (especially adult age classes) were abundant in the spring months, while fish and gelatinous zooplankton (e.g., pyrosomes) were more abundant in September. Whales were abundant across the shelf, where they are more vulnerable to collisions with ships.
Some fun facts…
In September 2024, we completed our 72nd research cruise. Over the past two decades, we’ve been at sea nearly 400 days and sampled more than 24,000 km of water; that’s equal to traveling across the United States more than five times! We counted more than 40 million zooplankton, more than 200,000 birds, and nearly 9,000 whales.
