California Sea Grant College Program

Biomonitoring, in its most liberal definition, is as old as humanity. Early humans would have been keenly aware of changes in animal and plant communities, especially those that were part of their prey and food supply, and they may have been able to make some tenuous connections between these changes and their changing environment. However, these early humans (and indeed many modern ones) would have been completely unaware of the changing populations of microscopic organisms under their feet, and what can be learned by scientific study of these sentinels.