Succession and organization of rocky intertidal zone surfgrass beds
(Phyllospadix scouleri Hook) were examined experimentally at two sites
on the Oregon coast. The interaction of three attributes of the plant
-- high persistence, high preemption, and slow recovery -- strongly
influences the organization of surfgrass beds. Permanent plots indicate
that...
Oceanic uptake of rising anthropogenic CO₂ emissions has caused the emergence of ocean acidification as a major threat to marine ecosystems worldwide. Along eastern boundary current systems, seawater is naturally acidified due to coastal upwelling of low pH seawater from depth. Compounded by ocean acidification, upwelling regions are expected to...
Kelps are large brown algae in the order Laminariales and are foundation species that form the basis of kelp forests. Present across a quarter of the world’s coastlines, kelp forests provide diverse services to coastal communities, as habitat for commercially and culturally important species, as a food source for humans...
The multifaceted role of the environment in regulating the structure and dynamics of biological communities has long fascinated ecologists and motivated much debate and research. Now, in a time of accelerated global changes due to human impacts, the need to understand how the environment shapes communities has gained new urgency....
Ecologists must increasingly balance the need for accurate predictions about how ecosystems will be affected by climate change, against the fact that making such predictions at the ecosystem-level may be infeasible. Although information about responses of individual species to a changing environment is increasing, scaling such information to the community...