Salish Sea research shifts from silos to coordinated monitoring

The Sentinels of Change Alliance, a UBC–Hakai Institute partnership partly funded by an NSERC Alliance Grant and the Tula Foundation, brings together 26 researchers to coordinate biodiversity monitoring across the Salish Sea; the project is midway through its five‑year funding and includes an open-data policy and a community Light Trap Network.

On a low-tide morning off the Salish Sea, field crews collect samples while a cross-disciplinary team coordinates monitoring and analysis. The Sentinels of Change Alliance brings UBC and the Hakai Institute together to study biodiversity, ecological change and resilience across the region. The project pairs academic, non-profit and community partners and was launched with shared funding and co-designed protocols. The team is now midway through a five-year funding window and is focused on sampling, analysis and synthesis. Key facts: - The Sentinels of Change Alliance unites 26 researchers from fields including zoology, botany, forestry, microbiology and oceanography across UBC and the Hakai Institute. - The project is partly supported by an NSERC Alliance Grant with co-funding and in-kind support from the Tula Foundation and Hakai Institute. - Researchers co-created research questions and protocols from the outset to avoid later data-translation gaps and to align planning, fieldwork, analysis and publishing. - An open-data policy provides access to six core biodiversity monitoring datasets, with quality-controlled public release planned at the five-year mark. - The Light Trap Network engages First Nations, stewardship groups, educators and volunteers at 23 sites to monitor larval Dungeness crab timing and abundance, expanding spatial coverage. Summary: The Alliance is testing a model where collaboration is built into every stage of research, aiming for more integrated, time- and location-linked data across the Salish Sea. The initiative is in active sampling and synthesis, and team members are discussing how to sustain core monitoring and relationships beyond the current grant period.