In 1891, Professor William E. Ritter of the biology department at the University of California began searching for a location along the California coast for a biological field station. After operating summer field stations from tents in Pacific Grove on Monterey Bay, Avalon on Catalina Island and San Pedro, California, Ritter selected Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor as the home for what he originally hoped would be a permanent station. The station opened in June 1901. Ritter’s goal was to catalog the rich fauna of San Pedro Bay, Santa Catalina Island and San Diego Bay. The laboratory also provided an educational opportunity for secondary school teachers in the field of marine zoology. Ritter sought help from prominent Los Angeles citizens and the Southern California Academy of Sciences to financially support the laboratory and the laboratory remained in operation for the summers of 1901 and 1902. The Marine Biological Laboratory of Terminal Island represented the first outpost of the University of California in Southern California and the true beginning for the study of marine science within the Los Angeles region. Scientific research in the Los Angeles region prior to this time gave little attention to marine life. It was during the laboratory’s first year of operation in 1901 that the first red tide off Southern California was recorded. This paper chronicles the history of the two summers of operation at the Terminal Island laboratory focusing on the challenges to establish, furnish and raise funds for the continuation of the laboratory in Los Angeles. Ultimately, Los Angeles found itself outcompeted by a focused fundraising campaign organized in San Diego and Ritter moved the laboratory to San Diego in 1903. In making the move, Ritter speculated that Los Angeles Harbor might become commercially significant reducing its appeal as a place for collecting and studying marine life. Ritter’s San Diego laboratory ultimately became the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Yet its humble beginning in an old bathhouse on Terminal Island is often overlooked.

Los Angeles Harbor, in San Pedro Bay, has long drawn scientific researchers, from its days as a 19^th century muddy tide flat to today’s industrial complex of man-made channels and wharves. A marine biological laboratory was established on Terminal Island as an outpost of the University of California and operating for the summers of 1901 and 1902. As it was a teaching laboratory, it attracted women students and researchers. Two Los Angeles women associated with the laboratory and who made contributions to the advancement of biology were Sarah P. Monks, an instructor at the Los Angeles Normal School and Martha Burton Williamson, a self-taught conchologist. These women were born in the 1840’s and grew up at a time when scientific pursuits were not the norm for the proper Victorian women. Both had done research in Los Angeles Harbor before the laboratory on Terminal Island was opened and both continued their independent research in the harbor after the laboratory was relocated to San Diego. Both women had cottages on Terminal Island from where they collected and conducted their research. Monks named her cottage Phataria after a sea star, whose asexual reproduction and autonomy was the subject of her research. Williamson amassed a significant collection of shells, corresponding extensively with malacologists from around the world. Williamson’s most significant publication was her 1892 Smithsonian paper on the shells of San Pedro Bay, possibly the first paper published devoted exclusively to the biota of San Pedro Bay and certainly, the first written by a woman. Both faced setbacks in their careers, Monks by not being recognized as author of her anatomy textbook and Williamson for her inability to join the California Academy of Sciences. They both survived residing, at least part-time, within the inhospitable environment of the Terminal Island district of Los Angeles Harbor. They serve as role models for any women who face the prospect of going where few women go in their quest for scientific knowledge.

Our experimental design was formulated to determine whether or not bulb polarity (orientation) at the time of replanting of bulbs to salvage plants of Calochortus weedii A. W. Wood (Liliaceae) or Weed’s Mariposa Lily affected the success of the mitigation transplant effort. Polarity of bulbs at planting clearly did influence subsequent growth, most notably in the tip-down (D) treatment. Among these bulbs, 75% failed to emerge from dormancy and only four (20%) actually set mature fruit. This was in sharp contrast to the other three treatments where 100% of the bulbs successfully emerged in this season and between 80% (S) and 95% (UG and UN) set mature fruit. The data from this study do indicate that: 1) bulb planting orientation does influence survival and growth, and 2) proper bulb planting polarity (orientation) should be an important consideration in any transplantation of this or any sensitive bulb producing plant species for mitigation purposes.

The white seabass, Atractoscion nobilis, is a commercially important member of the Sciaenidae that has experienced historic exploitation by fisheries off the coast of southern California. For the present study, we sought to determine the levels of population connectivity among localities distributed throughout the species’ range using nuclear microsatellite markers. Data from the present study have revealed distinct genetic breaks between the Southern California Bight, Pacific Baja California, and the Peninsula of Baja California.