OCS Study • MMS 2003-075 Species-level identification of infaunal samples and the relationship between taxonomic aggregation and the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series assessment design Final Technical Summary Final Study Report U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Pacific OCS Region DRAFT Final Technical Summary – Holbrook et al 2 Species-level identification of infaunal samples and the relationship between taxonomic aggregation and the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series assessment design Final Technical Summary Final Study Report Authors S.J. Holbrook M.H. Carr C.W. Osenberg Principal Investigators Prepared under MMS Cooperative Agreement No. 14-35-0001-30761 by Southern California Educational Initiative Marine Science Institute University of California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6150 U.S. Department of the Interior Minerals Management Service Camarillo Pacific OCS Region November 2003 DRAFT Final Technical Summary – Holbrook et al Disclaimer This report has been reviewed by the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf Region, Minerals Management Service, U.S. Department of the Interior and approved for publication. The opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations in this report are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Minerals Management Service. Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation for use. This report has not been edited for conformity with Minerals Management Service editorial standards. Availability of Report Extra copies of the report may be obtained from: U.S. Dept. of the Interior Minerals Management Service Pacific OCS Region 770 Paseo Camarillo Camarillo, CA 93010 Phone: 805-389-7621 A PDF file of this report is available at: http://www.coastalresearchcenter.ucsb.edu/SCEI/ Suggested Citation The suggested citation for this report is: Holbrook, S.J., Carr, M.H., and Osenburg C.W. Species-level identification of infaunal samples and the relationship between taxonomic aggregation and the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series assessment design. MMS OCS Study 2003-075. Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, California. MMS Cooperative Agreement Number 14-35- 0001-30761. 34 pages. 4 Table of Contents FINAL TECHNICAL SUMMARY....................................................................... 1 FINAL STUDY REPORT ...................................................................................... 11 Motivation........................................................................................................... 11 Previous Studies of Taxonomic Aggregation ..................................................... 11 The BACIPS Design ........................................................................................... 13 Expected Effects of Taxonomic Aggregation..................................................... 15 Taxonomic Aggregation and the Portfolio Analogy........................................... 16 Species-level Identification Using Existing Samples ......................................... 17 Produced Water....................................................................................... 17 Power Plant............................................................................................. 18 Approach Taken...................................................................................... 19 The Databases......................................................................................... 24 Issues that can be addressed with the new databases.............................. 25 Literature Cited................................................................................................... 27 Appendix A: Carpenteria Infaunal Density Cores ............................................. 30 Appendix B: Gaviota Density Cores.................................................................. 31 Appendix C: Gaviota Emergence Traps ............................................................ 32 Appendix D: Gaviota Re-Entry Traps................................................................ 33 Appendix E: Taxonomic List............................................................................. 34 List of Tables and Figures Table 1. (Technical Summary) Summary of Sampling Results.............................. 4 Table 1. Sources of Variance ................................................................................... 12 Table 2. Summary of Samples for Species-level Identification............................... 19 Figure 1. Patterns of spatial and temporal variation ................................................ 14 Figure 2. Responses of two species to different sources of variation ...................... 15 Figure 3. Total and mean abundance of Tellina carpenteri..................................... 20 Figure 4. Example comparison of the size structure of Tellina carpenteri.............. 22 Figure 4. (continued) Panel B ................................................................................. 23 DRAFT Final Technical Summary – Holbrook et al ii Species-level Identification of Infaunal Samples FINAL TECHNICAL SUMMARY STUDY TITLE: Detecting Ecological Impacts: Effects of Taxonomic Aggregation in the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series Design REPORT TITLE: Species-level identification of infaunal samples and the relationship between taxonomic aggregation and the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series assessment design CONTRACT NUMBER: 14-35-0001-30761 SPONSORING OCS REGION: Pacific APPLICABLE PLANNING AREA(S): Southern California FISCAL YEAR(S) OF PROJECT FUNDING: FY 96, FY 97, FY 98 COMPLETION DATE OF REPORT: November 2003 COST(S): FY 96: $211,616; FY 97: $69,476; FY 98: $61,540; FY 99: no cost CUMULATIVE PROJECT COST: $342,633 PROJECT MANAGER: Russell J. Schmitt AFFILIATION: University of California, Santa Barbara ADDRESS: Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6150 PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS: 1S.J. Holbrook, 2M.H. Carr, and 3C.W. Osenberg ADDRESSES: 1Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9610; 2Department of Ecology and Evolution, Long Marine Laboratory, 100 Shaffer Road, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95060; 3Department of Zoology, PO Box 118525, 223 Bartram Hall, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-8525 KEY WORDS: Santa Barbara Channel; produced water; infauna, taxonomy; BACIPS; assessment design; statistical power BACKGROUND: Traditional studies of environmental impacts are notoriously expensive, due in part, to the cost of species-level identification in systems that are extremely speciose (e.g., as exemplified by infaunal marine communities). However, less expensive studies using higher taxonomic levels of identification (e.g., family or class) are typically chided as inadequate. Such criticism is often unsubstantiated: e.g., Carney (1996) concluded that studies of the effects of taxonomic aggregation are critically needed 1 Final Technical Summary – Holbrook et al before we can best design future assessments. Importantly, any critical evaluation must occur in the context of an appropriate design. For example, previous attempts to address this issue (e.g., Ferraro and Cole 1992) have been based on simple, Control-Impact designs that confound spatial variation driven by other processes with the effects of the anthropogenic activity being studied (Osenberg and Schmitt 1996). Instead, we require an evaluation of taxonomic aggregation in the context of a sampling design that can reliably separate a putative impact from other sources of temporal and spatial variability. Therefore, effects of taxonomic aggregation should be explored in the context of the Before-After/Control-Impact Paired Series assessment design (Stewart-Oaten et al. 1986; Schmitt and Osenberg 1996). OBJECTIVES: Our main objective was to obtain species-level identification of organisms that were archived in previously collected MMS/UC SCEI samples (a portion of these samples formed the basis of the previous analyses of produced water by Osenberg et al. 1992a,b, 1994, 1996). We also aimed to obtain data on size-frequency distributions, which could prove to be a more sensitive indicator of environmental impacts (e.g., Osenberg et al. 1996). Finally, we updated the taxonomic designations for another comprehensive dataset collected for a study of the effects of a nuclear power plant so that all datasets used an identical taxonomic scheme and could therefore be analyzed similarly. We selected these previous studies because they offered the opportunities to examine taxonomic aggregation in the context of BACIPS assessment designs. Finally, we had hoped to conduct analyses of these data, but the species-level identification took significantly more time and resources than anticipated (further highlighting a limitation of species level data). As a result, we are making the resulting data available to the scientific community via the internet (e.g., on the web page for the UCSB led Long Term Ecological Research program) to facilitate subsequent analyses (e.g., to quantify the effect of taxonomic pooling on the error variance in BACIPS designs and thus the power of assessment studies). While the species level identifications were being completed, we also continued our application of BACIPS to new environmental contexts, including the design of MPAs and the study of artificial