LMU Biology Professor Awarded Grant to Study LA Coastal Health Through Marine Mussels

How did the January 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles affect the marine habitats and overall health of the Santa Monica Bay? Christina Vasquez, associate professor of biology at Loyola Marymount University, is using marine mussels to answer this question.

Thanks to a $20,000 grant from the Ferris Olson Family Foundation for Ocean Stewardship, Vasquez - in collaboration with LMU civil and environmental engineering professor Rachel Adams - is studying the effects of heavy metal exposure on marine mussels as a method for monitoring coastal health. Vasquez was awarded the grant together with Tom Ford, chief executive officer of The Bay Foundation and co-executive director of the LMU Coastal Research Institute.

"Marine mussels are filter feeders, which makes them a great biological indicator of ecosystem health," said Vasquez, who has been studying marine mussels for 20 years.

"When mussels open their shells to feed, they draw water in through an intake siphon, filter out algae, and then expel the water through an exit siphon," Vasquez said. "Because they process large amounts of seawater, they also accumulate any toxins it contains. By analyzing the mussels' tissue, we can measure those toxin levels."

Through this one-year grant, Vasquez and her team are collecting mussels four times a year across four sites up and down the Santa Monica Bay, including Pacific Palisades, Ballona Creek in Marina Del Rey, the Marina Del Rey Harbor, and White Point Beach in Rancho Palos Verdes.

The collected mussel tissues are dried in a lab oven, ground into a powder, and then analyzed for heavy metals. This lab work is taking place on campus at LMU in collaboration with various science departments, professors, and labs, including chemistry, biology, environmental science, and engineering. For example, Adams, a civil and environmental engineering professor, is part of analyzing the tissue samples in LMU's chemistry lab using the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) instrument.

LMU undergraduate students (sophomores through seniors) are also a large part of the field work and lab research and analysis, gaining hands-on skills that will help them in their career. "This research project is a great example of how our Seaver College students have an opportunity to do Ph.D. level research as undergrads," said Vasquez. "Many universities leave this type of research to graduate students and above."

LMU undergraduate students are helping with seasonal mussel collection, maintaining and cleaning temperature and salinity loggers at each site, offloading data from the loggers, and helping to process and analyze tissue samples in the lab.

Through this research, Vasquez and Adams hope to identify which locations in the Santa Monica Bay are more polluted with heavy metals. One of their goals is to share the status of heavy metal toxins with the public and LA County. "LA County monitors the oceans for bacteria, but they don't have enough information on heavy metals," she said.

The Palisades Fire was also a rare wildfire since it took place on the coast. There is not a lot of data about the effects of coastal wildfires on marine habitats. For example, during the fire, hazardous chemicals, like lithium and nickel, leached out from burned car batteries and washing machines into the ocean.

To gather data after the fire, Vasquez and Ford's team collected mussels from their Pacific Palisades monitoring site in February 2025 for analyses performed by Adams and two LMU undergraduates. The initial data was submitted to the Ferris Olson Family Foundation for Ocean Stewardship, who awarded them with this $20k grant to help continue this important work.

"We hope this grant helps us establish a long-term mussel monitoring program for LMU," said Vasquez.