To study how environmental conditions might affect planktonic organisms in the California Current System, our project group has been subdivided into three teams: HSI/Coding Team, Planktoscope Team, and Communications/Outreach Team.
HSI/ Coding Team
The Coding Team consists of three team members who are working with MatLab and R to create a Habitat Suitability Index (HSI) for Dungeness Crab larvae in the California Current System. The goal of this HSI is to show how Dungeness Crab larvae respond to changes in environmental conditions in the California Current System. They are analyzing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) West Coast Ocean Acidification (WCOA) cruises, and other sources, to create usable parameters for the Dungeness Crab larvae HSI. These parameters will be used to produce an accurate HSI for Dungeness Crab larvae, showing how these organisms are affected by ocean conditions and how future changes in environmental conditions may affect their distribution within the California Current System.
In addition to analyzing data and creating the HSI, the coding team is working on creating a web application that creates a user-friendly HSI. This web application will take the HSI for Dungeness Crab larvae and allow the user to manipulate variables and create their own HSI. It may also be able to accept a user’s data to create a unique HSI.
Planktoscope Team
The Planktoscope Team consists of three full members, as well as other members of the group who provide assistance, working to identify plankton from images collected on the NOAA WCOA cruises. The plankton identification will be used to compare biological communities with areas that show interesting gradients of physical characteristics. An example of an interesting gradient is the change in nutrient availability from nearshore waters to offshore waters. The Planktoscope team is working to identify these areas of interest and to determine if planktonic communities are affected by the physical gradients in the areas of interest.
Communications/ Outreach Team
The Communications/ Outreach team is responsible for ensuring that the information gathered and tools created by our project group are accessible to the public. We have built a website to host the HSI web application and other relevant information about our project. The website will host information regarding the Planktoscope team’s work, a blog following the group’s progress throughout the project, and any information regarding potential outreach events that we host.
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