Island Biogeography in a Sea of Subsidies

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No habitat is an island. Energy and nutrients flow between aquatic and terrestrial environments, carried by wind, water, plants, and animals. These nutrient flows can have powerful impacts on adjacent ecosystems, connecting them together into "meta-ecosystems". I propose to advance our understanding of meta-ecosystems by testing how nutrient flows, productivity, and biogeography shape biodiversity patterns on coastal islands and salmon-bearing watersheds. Long-term objective. The long-term objective of my research program is to understand how subsidies among ecosystems affect ecology from individuals to communities. Within this theme, I have designed projects in two systems: watersheds and coastal islands. These complement one another by studying multiple forms of subsidy, and they allow me to ask novel questions that tie together the theories of island biogeography and meta-ecosystems. Short-term objectives. In the next five years, I will (1) determine how resource subsidies are incorporated into recipient ecosystems through experimental tests of how nutrients from wrack seaweed, otter feces, and salmon carcasses affect plant demography, (2) test how these subsidies influence communities and species-area relationships according to species' co-occurrences and trait-based phylogenetic filtering of communities, (3) track subsidies through island food webs based on island characteristics using stable isotope mixing models, and (4) synthesize this knowledge into resource-based meta-ecosystem models for both islands and watersheds. Impact. This research will provide the first comprehensive tests of predictions arising from an integration of theories about resource subsidies and island biogeography, ranging from densities of individuals to diversity of communities. In addition to advancing our fundamental understanding of ecology, our research on landscape connectivity can inform marine and terrestrial management planning by local First Nations and BC Parks, who co-manage the conservancies where we work, as well as the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is committed to moving toward ecosystem-based management. The strongest legacy may be the many people we will train, with scientific skills matched to the challenges they want to tackle, ranging from advancing our fundamental understanding of ecology to solving pressing environmental problems.