The Habitat Heartbeats project is developing a monitoring system to integrate living organisms such as oysters and mussels ("biosentinels”) with existing monitoring efforts.

The Habitat Heartbeats project was featured during the 2023 virtual symposium showcasing recent scientific studies related to the restoration and health of San Diego estuaries including the Tijuana River Estuary, San Diego Bay, and Los Peñasquitos Lagoon.

A peer-reviewed article describing several of the biosensor tools and the design process used to build them, as part of the 2021 Collaborative Research project incorporating bivalve biosensors into estuary monitoring infrastructure. 

The 2020-2021 catalyst project Refining Techniques for High-Frequency Monitoring of Chlorophyll in the NERRS brought together twelve biogeochemically diverse reserves to compare results from new YSI in situ sensor technology with ex

A multi-Reserve study explored the feasibility of including high frequency, in situ chlorophyll a monitoring in the National Estuarine Research Reserve System-wide Monitoring Program (NERR SWMP).

With funding from the NERRS Science Collaborative, scientists from 12 biogeographically diverse Reserves compared fluorescence measurements taken by the YSI EXO TAL sensor to extracted chlorophyll concentrations processed in the lab.

Standardized protocols for sensor-based chlorophyll monitoring are now available for use by staff around the system to implement high frequency chlorophyll monitoring at their reserves.