Variation in Process and Mechanism with Scale in the Regulation of a Low Intertidal Plant Assemblage

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Evaluating the causes of variation within and between communities is the major problem in community ecology. Dr. Menge will investigate community regulation in the low intertidal zone on the central Oregon coast. These studies are aimed at determining the factors regulating the spatial structure of plant-dominated assemblages at sites differing in exposure to waves. Use of factorial experimental designs will permit quantitative evaluation of the relative importances of each of several factors, and will provide tests of a recent multifactorial model of community regulation. Factors evaluated will be predation, disturbance, competition, recruitment, sedimentation, and physiological stress. Specific goals are: (1) determination of the causes of variation in distribution of surfgrass along a wave exposure gradient, (2) quantification of gradients of environmental stress and recruitment density, (3) determination of mechanisms of disturbance, (4) experimen- tal studies of the mechanisms underlying plant overgrowth, and (5) recolonization of surfgrass in relation to clearance size and position.