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Project Description-
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), through its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, has established five regional Estuarine & Great Lakes (EaGLe) programs at major academic research institutions with strong expertise in coastal environmental science. The Pacific Estuarine Ecosystem Indicator Research (PEEIR) Consortium is the only West Cowast EaGLe program. Its team is made up of a multidisciplinary group of thirty scientists from the Davis and Santa Barbara campuses of the University of California, as well as outside partners.
• The objective of PEEIR is to develop a suite of ecosystem indicators that includes both simple aggregations of data as well as more complex expressions of overall wetland health. A primary focus is to develop indicators of toxicant-induced stress and bioavailability for wetland biota. The work is being conducted at six sampling sites – three in northern California and three in southern California – that have varying degrees of contamination by toxic substances, organic compounds, and excess nutrients.
• The ultimate goal of the center is to develop new indicators of estuarine wetland health in marsh plants and animals, so that corrective management of our nation’s wetlands can be implemented before it is too late, too difficult, or prohibitively expensive. The research spans all levels of the biological hierarchy from strands of DNA, to populations, to the landscape, and involves ecotoxicologists, ecologists, biochemists, microbiologists, and remote-sensing experts.
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Participating Institution-
University of California, Davis
University of California, Santa Barbara
Bodega Marine Lab
The San Francisco Estuary Institute
The Bay Institute
Smith & Associates
Principal Investigators-
Susan Anderson, Bodega Marine Lab,
University of California, Davis
Gary Cherr, Bodega Marine Lab,
University of California, Davis
Steven Morgan, Bodega Marine Lab,
University of California, Davis
Roger Nisbet, University of California, Davis
Collaborators-
CALFED Bay-Delta Program
EPA Region 9: The Pacific Southwest
Southern California Coastal Water Research Project
UC Toxic Substances Research & Teaching Program
National Center for Environmental Research
NASA
Online Information-
PEEIR
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