Sentinels of Change: Engaging communities to monitor marine invertebrates in the Salish Sea

The Salish Sea supports an abundance of marine invertebrates that play critical roles in food webs and fisheries. Between climate change and intensifying local human impacts, species in the region face a growing list of threats, with the potential for population-level changes and cascading effects within nearshore ecosystems. Across our inland sea, coastal communities are poised to contribute to meaningful monitoring and science and, in doing so, enhance community capacity, ocean literacy, and environmental engagement. Working with communities, organizations, and Nations from across the Salish Sea, we are mobilizing a network of community scientists to monitor invertebrate communities and populations. In this decade-long initiative, we combine three approaches to monitor benthic and pelagic invertebrates, focusing on dynamics of recruitment and reproduction across a mosaic of social-ecological conditions. These methodologies are integrated with efforts at both regional and global scales, spanning international boundaries and producing useful data relevant within broad contexts. Improving our understanding of the reproduction, dispersal, and recruitment of marine invertebrates, can inform the management of species that hold significant cultural, ecological, and commercial importance. By combining accessible scientific tools with community momentum and place-based knowledge, this initiative brings a multiplicity of voices to the table to enhance collaboration and inspire stewardship in the Salish Sea.