Bioassessment 2020: Highlights from the Season

Giant Water Bugs, also known as “Toe-Biters,” are large invertebrate predators with a powerful bite! Females typically deposit their eggs onto the males’ back, and the male “Toe-Biter” keeps the eggs safe until they hatch.

As many of our readers and volunteers know, our spring bioassessment season is one of the major monitoring efforts of the year. We use a state-wide protocol that includes detailed habitat measurements and macroinvertebrate collection to assess creek health. Volunteers are an integral part of this effort. Our volunteers come to us from all walks of life, from seniors to college students and everything in between. We kick off the season with an orientation, and then volunteers join us on our surveys. Each season we usually have about 20 volunteers helping us monitor ten sites, collecting over 1,000 data points per site. Spring 2020: a …

Field Updates April and May 2018: Bioassessment Monitoring and New Team Members

June 1, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program bioassessment bugs caddisfly estuary program macros mayfly MBNEP Miossi Charitable Trust morro bay stonefly stream survey water quality Blog Posts Field Updates

Monitoring team works in the middle of the creek.

Bioassessment Monitoring Each spring, the Estuary Program conducts bioassessment monitoring throughout the Morro Bay Watershed. Bioassessment monitoring is an important tool that allows us to assess the health of local streams to determine their value as fish habitat. This monitoring involves collecting macroinvertebrates, insects visible to the naked eye, and taking measurements of things like water depth and canopy cover that tell us about the health of the creek. Check out this blog post to learn more about what bioassessment monitoring tells us about the health of our local creeks. Our bioassessment season kicked off on Saturday, April …

Finding A New Perspective: Morro Bay Estuary Poetry Contest 2018

March 16, 2018 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program california coalesce bookstore contest estuary haiku Miossi Charitable Trust morro bay Photography poetry time lapse Blog Posts

This is the first picture the Morro Bay Cam captured.

You’ve likely stood near Coleman beach and watched the waves roll in through the mouth of Morro Bay’s harbor, or visited Sweet Springs and looked out over the back bay to see the mud flats at low tide. But, have you ever stood perfectly still—as still as a great egret stalking its prey or a live oak on the edge the boardwalk at the Elfin Forest—to watch the tide roll all the way in and all the way out? It’s a phenomenon that happens twice each day along Morro Bay’s shores, but we don’t have time to observe it …

Spring Bioassessment – Join the Team!

March 11, 2016 Posted by Morro Bay National Estuary Program bioassessment bugs creeks estuary program Harold J. Miossi Charitable Trust Miossi Charitable Trust morro bay Blog Posts

Estuary Program staff complete a habitat assessment during a bioassessment survey in 2015.

Each spring, the Estuary Program and our volunteers engage in a bioassessment monitoring effort at a variety of sites along local creeks. This monitoring process follows a detailed protocol to collect habitat data and samples of macroinvertebrates or “macros,” which are insects that are visible to the naked eye. Some macros are very sensitive to pollution, so if you find them in a creek, you know that the water quality is good. This water penny, for example, is found in the creeks in our watershed. It spends from one to two years of its life cycle in this larval …