The nearshore marine environment, the interface of land and sea, is one of the most biologically productive areas on Earth. It is also the place where most people interact with the ocean. This interaction occurs in may ways: urban discharge from towns and cities, agricultural runoff from farms and fields, commercial and recreational fishing, whale watching expeditions, and teachers leading field trips to the shoreline. Due in large part to increasing coastal concentrations of people and their cumulative impacts, there has been a growing interest as well as legislation focused on the conservation of coastal biological environments and living marine resources.

The Coastal Biology cluster group concentrates their effort on the coastal ocean, including the animals and plants that populate the different environments and habitats of this zone, as well as the processes that influence the distribution of these organisms and how all of these change spatially and temporally. The methods used by the scientists in this group are as varied as the organisms they study. By using innovative field approaches and molecular tools, these coastal biologists and ecologists explore questions of population biology and genetics, reproduction and dispersal, community structure, evolutionary biology, and ecosystem health and change. 

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Coastal Biology Cluster Group:

Suzanne Alonzo, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Sexual selection, social behavior and the evolution and ecology of reproduction.

Giacomo Bernardi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Fish biology, phylogenetics, evolution.

Mark Carr, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Marine ecology, applied marine ecology.

Phillip Crews, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Chemistry & Biochemistry, Research Professor: Marine natural products chemistry, bioorganic chemistry, organic structural analysis by NMR, natural products of marine macro- and microorganisms.

Laurel Fox, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology:  Terrestrial population and community ecology, plant-animal interactions.

Kristy Kroeker, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology:  Global change biology, community ecology, applied marine ecology.

Marc Mangel, Professor Emeritus SOE, Distinguished Research Professor: Mathematical modeling of biological phenomena, especially quantitative issues in fishery management; mathematical and computational aspects of aging and disease; impact of technology on biological systems.

Ingrid Parker, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Plant ecology, plant-pathogen interactions, biological invasions .

Grant Pogson, Professor Emeritus of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Molecular population genetics, ecological genetics, marine invertebrates and fishes.

Donald Potts, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Coral reef ecology, genetics, evolution, and geological history; marine biodiversity; tropical biology, global change, and remote sensing.

Peter Raimondi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Marine ecology, evolutionary ecology, experimental design, applied ecology.

Scientists in the Fisheries and Fishery Management cluster have diverse interests, ranging from life histories of individual species, roles of ecological and physiological processes on population dynamics, population genetics, and fishery stock assessments. Members of this group have also been heavily involved in the establishment and monitoring of Marine Protected Areas in California’s coastal waters, and how fishery regulations affect both the fish populations and the fishing communities who are dependent on the sustainability of individual fisheries for economic survival.

In 2000, the NOAA Fisheries, Southwest Fisheries Science Center Fisheries Ecology Division was built on the Coastal Science Campus. This Center now has over 100 scientists and support staff (including many Institute of Marine Science collaborators) who conduct research relevant to the conservation and management of West Coast groundfish resources, the restoration and recovery of threatened and endangered fishes (salmon, steelhead trout and sturgeon) in California. Many of the NOAA scientists hold research associate appointments within the Institute, some hold adjunction appointments within academic departments, and many take an active role in supporting, advising and mentoring UCSC graduate students.

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Fisheries and Fishery Management Cluster Group:

Suzanne Alonzo, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Sexual selection, social behavior and the evolution and ecology of reproduction.

Giacomo Bernardi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Fish biology, phylogenetics, evolution.

Mark Carr, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Marine ecology, applied marine ecology.

Eric Danner, Associate Researcher: Spatial patterns in ecology using coupled physical and biological models to understand how climate and water management interact to impact the diverse range of aquatic habitats in California’s Central Valley watershed.

John Field, Researcher: Understanding the spatial scales of recruitment processes, investigating the mechanisms that drive recruitment variability and the spatial distribution of forage species, ecosystem interactions between variable forage abundance and higher trophic level predators, improved methods for stock assessments, the reproductive ecology of groundfish, and the role of climate variability and climate change in all of these respective processes.

John Carlos Garza, Adjunct Professor of Ocean Sciences: Population and ecological genetics of marine organisms.

Elliott Hazen, Adjunct Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Marine ecology, birds and mammals, conservation biology: focusing on predator-prey dynamics and their response to environmental variability and global change.

Joe Kiernan, Assistant Researcher: How resource subsidies, environmental stochasticity, and biotic interactions affect the structure and function of riverine communities; particularly the relative and synergistic roles of physical habitat, hydrology, and food web structure in determining the growth and production of juvenile salmonids, and how these factors vary across both time and space.

Steven Lindley, Researcher: Physical environment influences the dynamics of aquatic populations and communities, particularly involving Chinook salmon, steelhead and green sturgeon, in systems ranging from small coastal watersheds to the northeast Pacific.

Marc Mangel, Professor Emeritus SOE: Mathematical modeling of biological phenomena, especially quantitative issues in fishery management; mathematical and computational aspects of aging and disease; impact of technology on biological systems.

Nathan Mantua, Researcher: Climate variability, change, and predictability, climate impacts on aquatic ecosystems, and the use of climate information in resource management.

Eric Palkovacs, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, FCP Director: Freshwater ecology, eco-evolutionary dynamics, fisheries and fish ecology.

Carrie Pomeroy, Researcher, Adjunct Professor of Coastal Science & Policy Program: Human dimensions of fisheries and fishing communities, and how environmental, regulatory, social and economic factors affect their function and well-being.

Peter Raimondi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Interim Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences: Marine ecology, evolutionary ecology, experimental design, applied ecology.

Katherine Seto, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Department: Marine and coastal law and policy, political ecology, marine resource governance

Brian Spence, Researcher: The interactions between anadromous salmonids and their environments across a broad range of spatial and temporal scales.

Brian Wells, Researcher: The effect of environmental variability and fishing practices on population dynamics of seabirds, krill, and fishes.

Juan Zwolinski, Associate Researcher: Automation of data processing of satellite-sensed oceanographic conditions and acoustic-trawl surveys for routinely predicting and surveying potential sardine habitat and rapidly estimating the abundances and distributions of coastal pelagic species and krill.

The Marine and Coastal Geology cluster group includes a diverse group of Earth scientists who work on the geological evolution of ocean basins extending from the coastal zone where most human interactions occur, to the active continental margins where oceanic plates are subducted and continental accretion occurs, to ocean ridges where new lithosphere is created and seafloor spreading takes place. While the research of this group varies widely in methods, physical setting and purpose, there are some common themes, which include the nature and importance of fluid or hydrothermal flow through the Earth’s crust beneath ocean ridges, and the process of subduction where old seafloor is destroyed at ocean trenches.

Some of this research is based on ocean drilling, including both samples collected at depth beneath the seafloor, and also the installation of monitoring equipment and measurements of temperatures, pressures, and fluid chemistry from deep boreholes. Along the coastline, where people and development now occupy geologically active environments, the issues of coastal hazards including coastal retreat, El Niño impacts, tsunamis, and a rising sea level and how we respond or adapt to these processes are areas of active research.

The Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center of the United States Geological Survey is located between the main UCSC campus and the Coastal Science Campus. Through a Cooperative Agreement, many of the USGS coastal and marine scientists have research associate appointments with the Institute and have developed collaborative research projects, serve on graduate committees, and support a large number of graduate and undergraduate students. The USGS scientists conduct multidisciplinary research in the coastal and offshore waters of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii and other US Pacific Islands.

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Marine and Coastal Geology Cluster Group:

Andrew Fisher, Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences: Surface water-groundwater interactions; Hydrogeology and thermal evolution of oceanic crust, seamounts, ridge flanks, and convergent margins; Numerical modeling of coupled flows; Groundwater recharge; Aquifer characterization, testing, facies controls on hydrologic properties; Groundwater aquifer-marine interactions; Long-term monitoring, geothermal instrumentation.

Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences: Coastal zone and ranges from coastal evolution and development, through shoreline processes, coastal hazards and coastal engineering, and sea level rise.

Ana Christina Ravelo, Professor and Chair of Ocean Sciences, Director of Geophysics & Planetary Physics: Stable isotope geochemistry, paleoceanography, paleoclimatology.

James Zachos, Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences: Problems related to the biological, chemical, and climatic evolution of late Cretaceous and Cenozoic oceans.

California is a coastal-dependent state and has the nation’s large ocean economy, which includes coastal tourism and recreation; transportation, ports and harbors; living marine resources; offshore energy and minerals; and coastal construction. To be healthy and productive, however, coastal oceans and the economies that depend upon them need to be healthy and sustainable. It has become apparent in recent decades, however, that human activities, in California and globally, have produced significant impacts in our coastal oceans, threatening their health and seriously impacting their ability to sustain themselves.

Scientists with the Marine and Coastal Policy cluster are involved directly or indirectly in their research with coastal and marine policy issues and developing the scientific foundation for best management and policy solutions for the problems or issues confronting us today. Fisheries management, marine protected areas, marine spatial planning, habitat restoration, water quality, harmful algal blooms, endangered or threatened species, sea-level rise and impacts of coastal hazards on communities, are all examples of the diverse research underway within this cluster.

The Institute has provided office space and developed Memorandums of Understanding and Cooperative Agreements with several marine policy oriented organizations including The Nature Conservancy’s Global Marine Team, Island Conservation, the Natural Capital Project, and the California Sea Grant Extension Program, which all provide opportunities for policy focused research projects and mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students.

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Marine and Coastal Policy Cluster Group:

Michael Beck, Researcher, Adjunct Professor of Ocean Sciences: Marine conservation, regional biodiversity planning, habitat restoration, marine proprietary rights.

Mark Carr, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology:  Marine ecology, applied marine ecology.

Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences: Coastal zone and ranges from coastal evolution and development, through shoreline processes, coastal hazards and coastal engineering, and sea level rise.

Kristy Kroeker, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology:  Global change biology, community ecology, applied marine ecology.

Carrie Pomeroy, Research Scientist, Adjunct Professor CSP: Human dimensions of fisheries and fishing communities, and how environmental, regulatory, social and economic factors affect their function and well-being.

Peter Raimondi, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Marine ecology, evolutionary ecology, experimental design, applied ecology.

Borja Reguero, Acting Associate Professor in the Physical and Biological Sciences Division: Works at the intersection of coastal engineering, risk management, and policy to advance sustainable solutions in coastal areas. His research and teaching interests span areas of climate change and adaptation.

Katherine Seto, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies Department: Marine and coastal law and policy, political ecology, marine resource governance

The Marine Vertebrate Biology cluster is one of the largest in the institute and includes researchers who study a broad range of marine mammals and birds including dolphins, whales, sea otters, seals, sea lions, peregrine falcons, eagles, and a variety of marine birds. This area of research was one of the first established within the Institute and the scientists in this group have had great success and are internationally recognized for developing unique field and lab techniques to investigate wild populations of marine mammals, marine birds, and raptors. These birds and animals are difficult to study in the wild because they migrate over very large areas and typically live in remote and often inaccessible environments.

Their research efforts utilize innovative technologies to study energetics and physiology, as well as hearing and vision of captive animals in the marine mammal pool complex at the Coastal Science Campus. These scientists also work in remote locations (the Antarctica and Arctic, for example) where environmental conditions are often harsh and challenging, but where unique opportunities exist to study foraging and diving behavior of wild animals outfitted with time-depth, temperature and salinity recorders, satellite telemetry devices and critter cams.

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Marine Vertebrate Biology Cluster Group:

Caroline Casey, Assistant Researcher: Animal behavior, including both signal production and reception among animals competing for resources and how social relationships and familiarity among individuals influence signal architecture

Megan Cimino, Assistant Researcher: Biological and physical factors that drive species demographics, distributions and movements. Utilize sensing technologies to understand climate change effects, biogeographic patterns, and predator-prey dynamics. Main focus is on penguins, other seabirds and their prey in the Antarctic and California Current system.

Daniel Costa, IMS Director and Distinguished Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Physiological ecology of marine mammals and birds.

Donald Croll, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Ecology and conservation of islands and seabirds.

Ari Friedlaender, Professor of Ocean Sciences: Foraging ecology and behavior of marine vertebrates and understanding the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance. 

Rachel Holser, Assistant Researcher: Connecting ocean conditions to the behavior and success of marine mammal populations. Particularly interested in variability in behavior, what drives and maintains that variability, and what the ecological consequences are for a population.

Shawn Noren, Researcher: Comparative physiological ecology of vertebrates, specifically, on developmental biochemistry, physiology, morphology, and whole animal energetics, with an emphasis on the respiratory, cardiovascular, and musculature systems.

Rita Mehta, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Comparative marine physiology, morphological, physiological, and behavioral evolution; mechanisms guiding diversification in vertebrate clades whose members have evolved an elongate and limb-reduced (or complete loss) body plan such as snakes, anguilliform fishes, and other eel-like vertebrates.

Colleen Reichmuth,  Research Biologist, Adjunct: Pinniped cognition and perception, including cross-modal (auditory-visual) emergent learning in sea lions and assessment hearing in marine mammals.

Terrie Williams, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology: Large mammal physiology, bioenergetics, exercise and environmental physiology.

Researchers in the Department of Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology seek to understand how harmful agents—including pathogens and chemicals—interact with the environment and damage humans and animals. The department and this cluster group have two main research foci: microbiology and environmental health and toxicology. These studies are by nature multidisciplinary and faculty in this department are passionate contributors to multidisciplinary efforts that cross departmental boundaries. They often collaborate in research and educational programs with colleagues in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Biomolecular Engineering, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, Ocean Sciences, and the Institute for Marine Sciences.

Research in the area of environmental health and toxicology focuses on the exposure of organisms to toxic agents, as well as examination of the molecular and physiological processes that are impacted by these exposures—with a special emphasis exposure to metals. Faculty members address a range of questions, including environmental concentration, speciation, and isotopic composition of toxic agents, exposure pathways, and toxic consequences for key molecular and cellular mechanisms.

Research in the area of microbiology focuses on the analysis of molecular genetics of both pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. Faculty address a diverse range of questions focused on how bacteria can transform metals to enhance or diminish their toxicity, and how bacteria themselves act as harmful agents by infecting humans.

Faculty (Professors and Adjuncts) and Professional Researchers affiliated with the Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology Cluster Group:

Karen Ottemann, Professor of Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology: Environmental responses of pathogenic bacteria, with a specific emphasis on Heliobacter pylori pathogenesis.

Chad Saltikov, Professor of Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology: Microbial anaerobic respiratory processes that influence the biotransformation of pollutants in the environment.

Marilou Sison-Mangus, Assistant Professor of Ocean Sciences: Microbial ecology, Evolutionary biology, Biological Oceanography.

Donald Smith, Professor of Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology: Neurotoxicity, cellular and organismal responses to environmental toxins.

Fitnat Yildiz, Professor of Microbiology & Environmental Toxicology: Understanding Processes Controlling Transmission of Bacterial Pathogens.

Jonathan Zehr, Professor of Ocean Sciences: Aquatic microbial ecology; biological oceanography.