Leptospira interrogans serovar Pomona infections cause periodic outbreaks in California sea lions (CSLs; Zalophus californianus ) and sporadic deaths in phocids. However, the frequency of infection and associated health impacts remain uncharacterized in sympatric threatened southern sea otters (SSOs; Enhydra lutris nereis ), which serve as important sentinels of coastal health. Given the broad impacts of L. interrogans on othe...

Our understanding of marine ecosystems and ability to manage them sustainably has come from multidisciplinary observations made repeatedly over long periods of time. These long‐term ecosystem observations depend on the capabilities of large research vessels, which play an essential role in the collection of global ocean observations. Research vessels serve as large, stable platforms for collecting high volume samples from the...

Understanding dissolved concentrations of the essential coenzyme thiamin (vitamin B 1 ) can provide insights into the biological controls on highly productive upwelling systems such as the California Current Ecosystem. To connect thiamin availability with microbial communities in the California Current Ecosystem, we measured concentrations of dissolved thiamin and its biochemically related moieties (thiamin congeners) and 16S...

Aim Long‐term monitoring data at the biogeographic scale are essential for developing baselines of biodiversity patterns and tools to diagnose natural cycles, trends, and anomalous events to assess threats from climate change. However, studies using these data often limit their analyses to relatively few metrics that may not adequately capture the breadth of biodiversity. Here, we calculate a suite of compositional and functio...

Klebsiella pneumoniae is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, and non-motile bacillus frequently observed in mammals. A hypermucoviscous (HMV) phenotype of K. pneumoniae is reported in stranded California sea lions (CSL) causing pleuritis and bronchopneumonia as a persistent cause of strandings. We describe an increase in cases of HMV and non-HMV K. pneumoniae in stranded CSLs along the California coast between 2017 to 2022...

Forecasting the recruitment of fish populations with skill has been a challenge in fisheries for over a century. Previous large‐scale meta‐analyses have suggested linkages between environmental or ecosystem drivers and recruitment; however, applying this information in a management setting remains underutilized. Here, we use a well‐studied database of groundfish assessments from the West Coast of the USA to ask whether environ...

Habitat loss and fragmentation have caused declines in the abundance and distribution of butterflies, particularly habitat specialists. The Chequered Skipper, Carterocephalus palaemon , has been extinct in England since 1976 after declining from the 1940s predominantly due to changes in woodland management including afforestation and the decline in traditional coppice management. To enable C. palaemon to flourish again, this s...

2022 marked the third consecutive La Niña and extended the longest consecutive stretch of negative Oceanic Niño Index since 1998-2001. While physical and biological conditions in winter and spring largely adhered to prior La Niña conditions, summer and fall were very different. Similar to past La Niña events, in winter and spring coastal upwelling was either average or above average, temperature average or below average, salin...

Quantifying trophic relationships of marine species is fundamental to the construction and performance of ecosystem models, development of effective ecosystem-based fisheries management strategies, and support of trait-based approaches to ecological risk assessment. Accounting for food web dynamics in taxonomically diverse ecosystems, such as the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), is especially challenging beca...

This paper evaluated analytical methods used to generate time-series data from elephant tail hairs, which can be used to reflect changing exposure to environmental geochemistry. Elephant tail hairs were analysed by three methods sequentially, each providing data to inform subsequent analysis. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-ray Microanalysis visually showed the structure of the hair, specific structures such as tubule...