The purpose of this visit is to have a collaborative in-person working conference with two UC postdocs (Mallarie Yeager- UCSC and Anita Giraldo Ospina- UCSB) who have been working on Species Distribution Models of rocky reef kelp forest species along the CA coastline as apart of two ongoing grants (Mallarie Yeager: Ocean Protection Council - awarded to Pete Raimondi, Mark Carr and Will White and Anita Giraldo Ospina: CA Seagrant- awarded to Jenn Caselle, Mark Carr and Tom Bell). In addition to presenting findings and discussions of future model fitting of these SDMs, Mallarie and Anita plan to work on proposals for summer fieldwork on coastal "white zone" validations of rock vs sand habitats. This work will help in clarifying model predictions made on the shallow coastal zones which multi-beam bathymetry is unable to reach. The paper for the white zone calculations in nearly complete but needs on-site validations. The time at the Landels-Hill Big Creek Reserve will be essential for Anita and Mallarie to communicate findings in person, make plans for summer fieldwork and overall network and bond with each other while emerging themselves in the natural beauty that is Big Creek.

Approved