LTER: Environmental drivers and ecological consequences of kelp forest dynamics (SBV IV)

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The goods and services provided by coastal marine ecosystems greatly benefit society, but their sustainability is uncertain due to increasing threats from coastal development, pollution, fishing, and changing climate. Long-term ecological studies of these important ecosystems are necessary for understanding the consequences of such threats and how to mitigate them. Focusing on key "foundation species" that create habitat and affect environmental conditions around them improves our understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. The Santa Barbara Coastal Long Term Ecological Research program (SBC LTER) demonstrates the value of long-term studies for understanding foundation species through its focus on kelp forest ecosystems. The giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera, the largest seaweed and one of the fastest growing species in the world, creates extremely productive ocean forests that harbor hundreds of other species and are highly valued in coastal temperate regions worldwide. Giant kelp forests are dynamic, characterized by frequent disturbance from storms, grazing, and other natural and human-induced phenomena that remove kelp, followed by rapid regeneration and recovery. This makes kelp forests ideal for investigating the effects of environmental change and human actions on a myriad of ecological processes that require centuries to address in other ecosystems, including forests on land. Understanding the nature of such processes that apply to all ecosystems is a key element of SBC LTER research. Broader impacts of the project are enhanced by integrating the research with a diverse array of education and outreach programs that target K-12 education, teacher professional development, undergraduate and graduate student training, and stakeholder engagement.SBC LTER's research builds substantially upon its prior results to: (1) advance a predictive understanding of how natural disturbance, climate variation and human actions (i.e., fishing and coastal development) alter the ecological structure and function of kelp forest ecosystems, and (2) identify the mechanisms that underlie these processes. Kelp forests are connected to one another and to the surrounding coastal ocean and adjacent intertidal beaches via the exchange of living and non-living materials. Thus predicting the causes and consequences of kelp forest responses to environmental change requires integrated studies of a wide range of physical, chemical and biological processes occurring on the seafloor and in the water column within and outside of the kelp forest to fully capture the dynamics of material exchange. Integration of these studies is accomplished by research that is organized spatially in a dynamic setting of changing climate and oceanography from the scale of a local kelp forest community and the ecological interactions and ecosystem processes occurring within it to a much larger landscape of interacting kelp forests and adjacent waters and beaches. Synthesis of the project's findings across different levels of biological organization and different spatial and temporal scales is achieved through statistical, analytical and numerical models that combine long-term ecological and environmental time-series data with relationships, mechanisms and processes obtained from shorter-term, but more intensive studies.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.