Over the next two years, scientists are collecting crabs, algae, and other creatures and microorganisms from California's tide pools for the California Intertidal Biodiversity DNA Barcode Library project. It’s the largest undertaking of its kind in the United States.
“There are about 3,000 known species of mollusks and shrimps and crabs and snails and worms in the known in the intertidal, and about 1,000 species of algae along our coast,” marine biologist Greg Rouse at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography said.
Rouse said the project will “become a huge resource for the future and provide a lot of essential information about our California biodiversity.”
“We're certainly trying to set a baseline survey so we understand what's present now, and that will really be, in a sense, an arc of what is here now for reference when people do these surveys again in the future and in the time of warming oceans and climate change,” he explained. “The California coast is really starting to change, and in some ways it already has been changing, so it's a shame we didn't do this some time ago, but it's certainly a good time to do it now. “
Once all collected and analyzed, the creatures and their DNA profiles will be kept in a library at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.
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