Predicting Physical Disturbance in a Changing Environment: Field Test of a Biomechanical Approach

小行星9633070 扰动在群落结构的非平衡理论中起着核心作用，其中高物种多样性和物种共存归因于在异质扰动的斑块环境中的随机招募过程。 岩石潮间带系统的扰动机制提供了一个研究的优势，因为它的特点是慢性高强度的物理扰动，主要是由于一个单一的因素-波浪作用所施加的水动力。这种“波浪暴露”的控制性质是潮间带作为实验生态学模型系统的原因之一。 丹尼博士的实验室最近已经能够联合收割机早期工作的结果在波浪统计和流体动力学与经验测量的强度的潮间带生物在一个定量的，生物力学的方法，预测物理扰动作为一个函数的时间和“波度”的海洋。这种方法的初步应用表明，它的预测是相当准确的，但还没有进行严格的测试的方法，这是这个项目的动力。 将对作为生物力学方法输入的参数进行广泛的实地测量，这些数据将用于预测沿着海岸的一系列地点的六种代表性植物和动物的每周干扰率。然后将这些预测与在这些相同地点凭经验测得的扰动率进行比较。然后可以计算预测和经验测量之间的拟合优度，以提供生物力学方法的总体预测能力的证据。 在这些研究中开发的廉价仪器将使潮间带生态学家有可能重复这种方法的基本步骤（测量最大波高，测量特定生境的最大水流速度），从而促进在各种各样的地点使用和测试生物力学方法。 如果这些测试的生物力学方法证实其能力，以预测特定物种的干扰率，该方法可以是一个有价值的工具，了解生态后果的季节性和年与年之间的变化，在波曝光，并预测如何率的干扰将改变，如果大规模的气候变化导致长期变化的波动的海洋。

9633070 Denny Disturbance plays a central role in non-equilibrium theories of community structure, in which high species diversity and species coexistence are attributed to processes of stochastic recruitment in a heterogeneously perturbed, patchy environment. The disturbance regime of the rocky intertidal system offers an advantage for study in that it is characterized by chronic high intensity physical disturbance due primarily to a single factor -- the hydrodynamic forces imposed by wave action. This controlling nature of "wave exposure" is one reason the intertidal zone serves as a model system in experimental ecology. Dr. Denny's lab has recently been able to combine the results of earlier work in wave statistics and hydrodynamics with empirical measurements of the strength of intertidal organisms in a quantitative, biomechanical method that predicts physical disturbance as a function of time and the "waviness" of the sea. Preliminary applications of this approach have shown that its predictions are reasonably accurate, but a rigorous test of the approach has not been conducted, which is the impetus for this project. Extensive field measurements will be conducted of the parameters that serve as inputs into the biomechanical approach, and these data will be used to predict the week-to-week rate of disturbance of each of six representative species of plants and animals at a series of sites along the shore. These predictions will then be compared to the rates of disturbance measured empirically at these same sites. The goodness of fit between prediction and empirical measurement can then be calculated to provide evidence of the overall predictive ability of the biomechanical approach. The inexpensive instruments developed in these studies will make it possible for intertidal ecologists to repeat the basic steps of this approach (measuring maximal wave height, measuring habitat-specific maximal water velocities), and thereby should facilitate the use and testing of the biomechanical method at a wide variety of sites. If these tests of the biomechanical approach confirm its ability to predict species-specific rates of disturbance, the method can be a valuable tool for understanding the ecological consequences of both seasonal and year-to-year variability in wave exposure, and for the prediction of how rates of disturbance will change if large-scale climatic change causes longterm shifts in the waviness of the ocean.