Knowledge of nutrient pathways and their resulting ecological interactions can alleviate numerous environmental problems associated with nutrient increases in both natural and managed systems. Although not unique, coastal systems are particularly prone to complex ecological interactions resulting from nutrient inputs from both the land and sea. Nutrient inputs to coastal...
Ecosystems are shaped by processes occurring and interacting over multiple temporal and spatial scales. Theory suggests such complexity can be simplified by focusing on processes sharing the same scale as the pattern of interest. This scale-dependent approach to studying communities has been challenged by multiscale meta-ecosystem theory, which recognizes that...
Insight into the dependence of benthic communities on biological and physical processes in nearshore pelagic environments, long considered a ``black box,'' has eluded ecologists. In rocky intertidal communities at Oregon coastal sites 80 km apart, differences in abundance of sessile invertebrates, herbivores, carnivores, and macrophytes in the low zone were...
A major goal of the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) has been to understand the impacts of climate change and variability on the coastal ecosystems of the inner shelf of the California Current Large Marine System in particular, and other marine and even nonmarine systems more generally....
Twenty years ago, the creation of a new scientific program, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), funded by the Packard Foundation, provided the opportunity to integrate—from the outset—research, monitoring, and outreach to the public, policymakers, and managers. PISCO’s outreach efforts were initially focused primarily on sharing scientific...
Hypoxia is increasing in coastal zones worldwide, with acute effects on demersal fish and benthic invertebrate communities in shallow coastal and estuarine habitats. Less studied are the effects of hypoxia on planktonic larvae of open coastal habitats. Climate change projections suggest intensified hypoxia in open coast upwelling systems, such as...
Wind-driven coastal ocean upwelling supplies nutrients to the
euphotic zone near the coast. Nutrients fuel the growth of phytoplankton,
the base of a very productive coastal marine ecosystem
[Pauly D, Christensen V (1995) Nature 374:255–257]. Because
nutrient supply and phytoplankton biomass in shelf waters are
highly sensitive to variation in...
The proliferation of efficient fishing practices has promoted the depletion of
commercial stocks around the world and caused significant collateral damage to marine
habitats. Recent empirical studies have shown that marine reserves can play an important role
in reversing these effects. Equilibrium metapopulation models predict that networks of marine
reserves...
The intermittent upwelling hypothesis (IUH) predicts that the strength of
ecological subsidies, organismal growth responses, and species interactions will vary
unimodally along a gradient of upwelling from persistent downwelling to persistent upwelling,
with maximal levels at an intermediate or ‘‘intermittent’’ state of upwelling. To test this model,
we employed the...
Through bottom–up inputs and larval transport, benthic–pelagic links can have an important effect on benthic community structure. Recent work on community structure of northeast Pacific rocky shores has focused on latitudinal differences in recruitment of intertidal invertebrates as a driver of variation in community structure. Recruitment differences are associated with...