Zooplankton control of climate change impacts on ocean food-webs

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Zooplankton are the critical link in marine food-webs between phytoplankton (microscopic plants) and higher level consumers (e.g., fish, seabirds). While widely accepted that climate-driven changes in zooplankton communities have played a key role in declines of fisheries and populations of marine birds and mammals, the processes that drive zooplankton response to climate change remain weakly resolved. Filling this knowledge gap is fundamental to: understanding ecosystem impacts of climate change, sustainable resource management, and fisheries conservation and policy, and represents my long-term program goal. This application is in support of three interlinked short-term objectives in support of this goal. Objective 1: Build a size-based framework for measurement of zooplankton food-web dynamics that will circumvent the challenges posed zooplankton community complexity. This approach will transform zooplankton food-web research, enabling global standardization of measurements of 1) predator-prey linkages; 2) transfer of biochemical properties; and 3) food-chain length, which ultimately determines productivity. British Columbia ecosystems will be used as case studies, taking advantage of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Hakai Institute's ocean observation platforms. Objective 2: Advance a new empirical approach, lacking to date, combining biochemistry and biomass size spectrum theory to measure Energy Transfer Efficiency (ETE) between food-web components. Climate-driven changes to ecosystem productivity, including fisheries, will only be fully understood once ETE estimates are available. This ground breaking approach will be applied to and enable climate projections of productivity across contrasting ocean ecosystems globally. Objective 3: Lead a paradigm shift in food-web models. Current models grossly oversimplify and inconsistently parameterize plankton groups, and use theoretical estimates of ETE. The outcomes of Objectives 1 and 2 will be incorporated into the Ecopath with Ecosim model framework, to revolutionize the representation of ecosystem dynamics, simulation of food web response to climate change, and resource management. Due to their essential linking function in marine food-webs, zooplankton are a key control of climate change impacts. My research program is poised to make a critical contribution to the mechanistic understanding of zooplankton response to climate change, and will ultimately yield more effective ecosystem-based management. My unique global experience and demonstrated ability to combine original analytical methods provide the background required to achieve the outlined objectives. These will be achieved in a dynamic laboratory offering an exceptional learning environment for HQP who will use cutting edge tools, work in national and international teams, and contribute to the leading edge of food web ecology.