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Contact: Yvonne Menard, 805-658-5725
National Park Service biologist David Kushner will discuss trends seen after three decades of monitoring the kelp forests around the Channel Islands during the April "From Shore to Sea" lecture. Kushner oversees the Kelp Forest Monitoring Program-the longest established inventory and monitoring program in the National Park Service. Since 1982 Channel Islands National Park, in cooperation with other agencies and organizations, has studied this diverse marine ecosystem, collecting population data on over 70 species of algae, invertebrates, and fish. Data from the Kelp Forest Monitoring Program plays a key role in understanding the effects of harvest on the nearshore marine ecosystem. This long-term monitoring program has helped scientists understand large-scale ecological patterns in kelp forest communities, as well as to predict population trends for individual species. Kushner received a bachelor's degree in aquatic biology from the University of California at Santa Barbara in1989. He has been a marine biologist at Channel Islands National Park since 1990 and has made over 3,200 dives with the Kelp Forest Monitoring program. His diving career, which started at age 16 in Los Angeles, California, includes diving in projects from Glacier Bay National Park to the Antarctic Peninsula. This lecture will be held on April 11, 2012. The "From Shore to Sea" lecture series is sponsored by Channel Islands National Park to further the understanding of current research on the Channel Islands and surrounding waters. The lectures occur at 7:00 p.m. on the second Wednesday of March, April, May, September, October, and November at the Channel Islands National Park Robert J. Lagomarsino Visitor Center, 1901 Spinnaker Drive in the Ventura Harbor. The programs are free and open to the public. |
Last updated: February 28, 2015