The David and Lucile Packard Foundation has announced a $2,285,000 grant to the University of California, Santa Cruz to support continued study of coastal ecosystems as part of a long-term collaborative research project involving four major universities in California and Oregon. The grant augments an earlier five-year, $17.7 million grant from the foundation that was shared by the four institutions, and brings UCSC's portion of the combined amount to the same level as its partner institutions.

The Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) involves researchers at UCSC, UC Santa Barbara, Oregon State University, and Stanford who are studying communities of organisms in near-shore habitats. The near-shore zone, which extends approximately six miles from the shoreline, is heavily influenced by human activities but not particularly well understood, said Peter Raimondi and Mark Carr, UCSC's principal investigators on the project.

Data gathered from fifty-seven study sites along a 1,200-mile stretch of coastline has already yielded valuable information about how different populations responded to the most recent El Nino, which brought changes in ocean currents, water temperatures, and climate conditions.

The new funding will enable PISCO researchers to expand their activities in several critical areas, including molecular genetics, near-shore oceanography, and selective tagging of marine species. In their studies of coastal fish populations, for example, they are pursuing several new lines of research on species that inhabit the kelp beds and rocky reefs in the sub-tidal zone.

"This significant augmentation from the Packard Foundation recognizes the outstanding work spearheaded by UCSC, as well as the potential for significant advances in understanding coastal ecosystems," said Jane Lubchenco, a PISCO principal investigator at Oregon State.