Award Abstract # 1637632
LTER: CCE-LTER Phase III: Ecological Transitions in an Eastern Boundary Current Upwelling Ecosystem

NSF Org: OCE
Division Of Ocean Sciences
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO
Initial Amendment Date: July 1, 2016
Latest Amendment Date: August 9, 2021
Award Number: 1637632
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Cynthia Suchman
csuchman@nsf.gov
 (703)292-2092
OCE
 Division Of Ocean Sciences
GEO
 Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date: August 1, 2016
End Date: July 31, 2023 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $6,762,000.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $6,987,109.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2016 = $1,876,255.00
FY 2017 = $377,745.00

FY 2018 = $1,127,000.00

FY 2019 = $1,127,000.00

FY 2020 = $1,169,109.00

FY 2021 = $1,310,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Mark Ohman (Principal Investigator)
    mohman@ucsd.edu
  • Arthur Miller (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Katherine Barbeau (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Michael Landry (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Ralf Goericke (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of California-San Diego Scripps Inst of Oceanography
8622 DISCOVERY WAY # 116
LA JOLLA
CA  US  92093-1500
(858)534-1293
Sponsor Congressional District: 50
Primary Place of Performance: UCSD, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
La Jolla
CA  US  92093-0210
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
50
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): QJ8HMDK7MRM3
Parent UEI: QJ8HMDK7MRM3
NSF Program(s): LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH,
BIOLOGICAL OCEANOGRAPHY
Primary Program Source: 01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01001920DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 1097, 1195, 1382, 1389, 1673, 4444, 7218, 8242, 8811, 9117, 9232, 9251
Program Element Code(s): 119500, 165000
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.050

ABSTRACT

Upwelling regions are some of the most productive ocean ecosystems. The study region of the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER is the southern sector of the California Current System (CCS), a major upwelling biome where the 67-year California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program provides essential information characterizing both natural climate variability and progressive changes. The CCE site spans a biogeographic boundary region, hence is an early sentinel of climate change; shows low frequency variations that are correlated with much of the North Pacific; is the preferred spawning site for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS; exhibits a broad gradient of ocean conditions over a short geographic distance; encompasses an undisturbed, layered sedimentary record of the past two millennia; and has well-developed models. The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER program addresses two over-arching questions: What are the mechanisms leading to different ecosystem states in a coastal pelagic ecosystem? What is the interplay between changing ocean climate, community structure, and ecosystem dynamics? This program will develop a new quantitative basis for forecasting the effects of climate perturbations on the management of key living marine resources, including numerous fishes, invertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds. The study region also affects CO2 exchange and carbon sequestration, as well as human recreation, navigation, and the livelihoods of large numbers of U.S. residents. The site encompasses a National Marine Sanctuary and constitutes major spawning habitat for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS. This research will involve extensive training of graduate students, undergraduate REU's, and will create teacher opportunities. Public programs and outreach efforts will be expanded in collaboration with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, to increase public awareness and understanding of climate effects on coastal pelagic communities, to connect the public

Phase II support of CCE led to extensive new findings: a new null hypothesis for abrupt ecosystem shifts, understanding of phenological changes in marine fish spawning, new roles for both Si- Fe interactions and mesopelagic fishes in mediating Carbon export, long-term changes in nutrient stoichiometry in upwelling source waters, eddy-mediated transformations of plankton production, and alterations of mesopelagic fishes in relation to ocean de-oxygenation. CCE studies of mesoscale frontal systems found marked effects of ocean fronts on organisms across the food web ranging from bacteria to marine fishes. Glider-based studies showed elevated phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass at frontal discontinuities and satellite studies showed that such frontal features are increasing in the CCE region. Several thousand people were reached through outreach activities. This award builds on the investigator's previous analyses of the mechanisms underlying abrupt changes in ecosystem state with three new program elements: (1) intensive analysis of cross-shore transport as a modulator of long-term ecosystem variation; (2) development of quantitative forecasts of the biotic effects of El Niño-Southern Oscillation; and (3) expansion of the ability to characterize ecosystem perturbations using molecular approaches. Multi-scale measurements of the five core LTER variables and their responses to secular ocean changes (warming, increased density stratification, de-oxygenation, and acidification) in the NE Pacific will be sustained. CCE-LTER studies are making excellent progress toward understanding ecological state changes and the development of a quantitative framework for forecasting future changes in ecosystem states in a major upwelling ecosystem. In this new award the investigators will conduct intensive shipboard Lagrangian process studies to test the role of cross-shore transport in exporting nutrients, other biogenic compounds, and organisms into the offshore zone, thereby modifying population dynamics and biogeochemical export. Climate sensitivity of cross-shore transport will be assessed using autonomous measurements and integrative modeling. Other mechanisms related to ecosystem transitions (in situ changes in stratification, alongshore advection, top down predation) will be analyzed, respectively, by field studies employing a space-for-time exchange, in situ and remote sensing measurements combined with modeling, and bioenergetic modeling. Collaborative studies will develop a new framework for forecasting ENSO effects on marine pelagic ecosystems along the U.S. west coast. Molecular approaches will be used to characterize trends in microbial diversity and associated plankton interactomes.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 129)
Amaya, Dillon J. and Alexander, Michael A. and Capotondi, Antonietta and Deser, Clara and Karnauskas, Kristopher B. and Miller, Arthur J. and Mantua, Nathan J. "Are Long-Term Changes in Mixed Layer Depth Influencing North Pacific Marine Heatwaves?" Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society , v.102 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-20-0144.1 Citation Details
Amaya, Dillon J. and Miller, Arthur J. and Xie, Shang-Ping and Kosaka, Yu "Physical drivers of the summer 2019 North Pacific marine heatwave" Nature Communications , v.11 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15820-w Citation Details
Anderson, Clarissa R. and Kudela, Raphael M. and Kahru, Mati and Chao, Yi and Rosenfeld, Leslie K. and Bahr, Frederick L. and Anderson, David M. and Norris, Tenaya A. "Initial skill assessment of the California Harmful Algae Risk Mapping (C-HARM) system" Harmful Algae , v.59 , 2016 10.1016/j.hal.2016.08.006 Citation Details
Biard, Tristan and Ohman, Mark_D "Vertical niche definition of testbearing protists (Rhizaria) into the twilight zone revealed by in situ imaging" Limnology and Oceanography , v.65 , 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/lno.11472 Citation Details
Bishop, James K. and Amaral, Vinicius J. and Lam, Phoebe J. and Wood, Todd J. and Lee, Jong-Mi and Laubach, Allison and Barnard, Andrew and Derr, Alex and Orrico, Cristina "Transmitted Cross-Polarized Light Detection of Particulate Inorganic Carbon Concentrations and Fluxes in the Ocean Water Column: Ships to ARGO Floats" Frontiers in Remote Sensing , v.3 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.3389/frsen.2022.837938 Citation Details
Black, Bryan A. and van der Sleen, Peter and Di Lorenzo, Emanuele and Griffin, Daniel and Sydeman, William J. and Dunham, Jason B. and Rykaczewski, Ryan R. and García-Reyes, Marisol and Safeeq, Mohammad and Arismendi, Ivan and Bograd, Steven J. "Rising synchrony controls western North American ecosystems" Global Change Biology , v.24 , 2018 10.1111/gcb.14128 Citation Details
Bograd, Steven J. and Jacox, Michael G. and Hazen, Elliott L. and Lovecchio, Elisa and Montes, Ivonne and Pozo Buil, Mercedes and Shannon, Lynne J. and Sydeman, William J. and Rykaczewski, Ryan R. "Climate Change Impacts on Eastern Boundary Upwelling Systems" Annual Review of Marine Science , v.15 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-032122-021945 Citation Details
Bograd, Steven J. and Schroeder, Isaac D. and Jacox, Michael G. "A water mass history of the Southern California current system" Geophysical Research Letters , v.46 , 2019 10.1029/2019GL082685 Citation Details
Bourne, Hannah L. and Bishop, James K. and Connors, Elizabeth J. and Wood, Todd J. "Carbon export and fate beneath a dynamic upwelled filament off the California coast" Biogeosciences , v.18 , 2021 https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-3053-2021 Citation Details
Bourne, Hannah L. and Bishop, James K. and Wood, Todd J. and Loew, Timothy J. and Liu, Yizhuang "Carbon Flux Explorer optical assessment of C, N and P fluxes" Biogeosciences , v.16 , 2019 10.5194/bg-16-1249-2019 Citation Details
Brandon, Jennifer A. and Freibott, Alexandra M. and Sala, Linsey "Patterns of suspended and salpingested microplastic debris in the North Pacific investigated with epifluorescence microscopy" Limnology and Oceanography Letters , v.5 , 2019 10.1002/lol2.10127 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 129)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Intellectual Merit:

The California Current Ecosystem Long-Term Ecological Research site (CCE-LTER) addresses the impacts of climate change and climate variability on a major coastal upwelling ecosystem along the U.S. west coast within the U.S. EEZ.  This pelagic ecosystem is of central importance to sustaining coastal fisheries, to the natural functioning of 4 National Marine Sanctuaries and state Marine Protected Areas, and to the sustainability of marine mammal and seabird populations, as well as to human livelihoods, coastal recreation, and safe navigation. 

During this grant period the CCE-LTER research program sustained long-term measurements of this important ecosystem, revealing: (1) long-term ocean warming and coincident increases in some krill populations, (2) a 37-year trend of ocean acidification, the longest such record in the Pacific Ocean, (3) multi-decadal changes in concentrations and ratios of dissolved nutrients that control phytoplankton growth at the base of the ocean food web, and (4) multi-decadal oscillations in several biological populations in parallel with changes in ocean climate variables. These findings, combined with experimental and modeling studies, led to the following new insights:

-       The novel concept of Conditional Top-Down ecosystem control, where predator-limitation acts primarily during certain ecosystem states.

-       The Enhanced Microbial Loop hypothesis, in which microbial grazers suppress the growth of prey and shift the composition of the plankton assemblage

-       The role of ocean fronts (i.e., regions of strong gradients) in accelerating carbon export from the surface to the interior of the ocean.

-       The consequences of coastal upwelling filaments in cross-shore transport of newly upwelled waters and newly fixed carbon to the offshore ocean.

-       Recognition of widespread limitation of phytoplankton growth by dissolved iron in the subsurface chlorophyll maximum.

-       Recognition via molecular analyses of the importance of nutrient (nitrogen) availability on the relative proportion of high biodiversity, offshore phytoplankton communities and low biodiversity, but highly productive nearshore communities.

-       Major advances in our understanding of the impacts of different types of El Niño on plankton production, plankton community composition, and distributional ranges.

-       Distinction of different physical drivers for different Marine Heatwaves, with differential consequences for marine food webs.

-       Changing phenology (i.e., seasonal timing) of blue whale migrations as a consequence of ocean warming and altered krill abundance.

 

Broader Impacts:

In this funding cycle, the CCE-LTER group engaged in extensive training and research support of future scientists, supporting the research of over 66 graduate students, 29 of whom completed a PhD or a Masters degree as a part of CCE Phase III.  In addition, the research of 9 postdoctoral investigators was supported.  Numerous undergraduates participated directly in research activities, including 37 REU (Research Experience for Undergraduate) students who participated in immersive summer research experiences, many of whom were from minority groups underrepresented in the Ocean Sciences.  CCE research activities directly contributed to the content of at least 14 graduate courses and 6 undergraduate courses at SIO/UCSD and other institutions. 

Our ongoing relationship with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps (BAS) allows CCE to leverage the reach and science interpretation strengths of a major public aquarium. BAS served approximately 450,000 guests per year until 2020, continued to provide programming and services to guests throughout the pandemic, and is again reaching comparable members of the public.  With BAS, our sponsorship of 3 secondary school teachers (via the NSF RET – Research Experience for Teachers program) led to the incorporation of authentic CCE research results into lesson plans for local high school students.  CCE graduate students and others shared their work regarding plankton ecology with the general public at Full Moon Pier Walks (over 1930 guests) and at SEA Days events (over 1800 guests). Graduate students and researchers also participated in Exploring Ocean STEM Career Nights for middle and high school students (420 students), serving on panels and facilitating hands-on stations featuring their work and discussions of their career pathway.  BAS led a series of teacher workshops from 2016-2019 that provided middle school teachers the opportunity to explore research in an authentic way and to participate in activities designed for adult learners. Teachers then worked with their fellow educators and the CCE team to adapt these activities for the unique needs of their classrooms.

CCE also has a long-term cooperative training program with the educational nonprofit Ocean Institute in Dana Point, California, helping to bring first hand experiences in plankton ecology to diverse school children in the southern California region.

CCE publicly serves data via EDI (the Environmental Data Initiative) and DataZoo (CCE’s own data-serving environment), to the scientific community and to the general public.  Our datasets have been accessed by IP addresses located around the United States and from most countries in the world.


Last Modified: 11/04/2023
Modified by: Mark D Ohman

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