ABSTRACT

Coastal upwelling regions are found along the eastern boundaries of all ocean basins and are some of the most productive ecosystems in the ocean. This award is supporting the California Current Ecosystem Long Term Ecological Research (CCE LTER) site in a major upwelling biome. It leverages the 73-year California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program which provides essential information characterizing climate variability and change in this system. The CCE LTER addresses two over-arching questions: What are the mechanisms leading to ecological transitions in a coastal pelagic ecosystem? And what is the interplay between changing ocean climate, community structure, and ecosystem dynamics? The investigators are working towards diagnosing mechanisms of ecosystem change and developing a quantitative framework for forecasting future conditions and how these might affect the management of key living marine resources, including numerous fishes, invertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds. They are training graduate and undergraduate students, as well as providing educational opportunities for teachers. Public programs and outreach efforts in collaboration with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography are increasing public awareness and understanding of climate effects on coastal pelagic communities and connecting the public to cutting-edge ocean research.

This project is adding to understanding of the mechanisms underlying abrupt ecological transitions with three interrelated foci: (1) investigation of marine heatwaves and resultant multiple stressors on organisms and communities, (2) elucidation of ecological stoichiometry and the response of multiple trophic levels to altered elemental ratios of source nutrients, and (3) analysis of top-down pressures mediated by a diverse suite of organisms. It is sustaining multi-scale measurements of five core LTER variables and responses to ocean warming, increased stratification, acidification, deoxygenation, and altered nutrient stoichiometry in the Northeast Pacific. The investigators are using long-term, spatially-resolved time series at multiple spatial scales to evaluate community shifts at multiple temporal scales, with new measurements allowing interrogation at finer taxonomic levels. They are conducting in situ multi-factorial experiments (temperature, macronutrients, micronutrients, light, grazing) in combination with genomic and transcriptomic analyses. These will complement time series measurements, inform next-generation biogeochemical models, and test hypotheses related to ecological stoichiometry and marine heatwaves. The team is also using a suite of imaging techniques, molecular and morphological methods, and active and passive acoustic approaches to quantify vertical structure and cooccurrence of organisms across trophic levels and test hypotheses about top-down control of the ecosystem.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

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