Ecosystem oceanography: understanding the dynamics of a changing ocean

我的研究有助于更深入地了解最近海洋生态系统变化的原因和后果。在过去的几年里，我们看到了观念的戏剧性转变，认识到捕鱼、气候变化和污染的影响现在已经成为海洋的主要生态驱动因素。我自己的研究在这一认识中发挥了重要作用，这些课题现在成为世界各地海洋科学实验室日益关注的焦点。在这些发展之后，“生态系统海洋学”这一新学科应运而生，其重点是了解和预测海洋从食物链的底部到顶部的全球变化。我的实验室最近的大部分工作都集中在顶级捕食者，即大型中上层鱼类、鲨鱼和海洋哺乳动物上，通过渔业数据和其他来源记录了它们的丰度和多样性的变化。然而，我们越来越多地在较低的营养水平发现伴随的变化，特别是在构成海洋食物网基础的浮游生物中，这可能通过营养相互作用影响较高水平的变化。在接下来的五年里，我的实验室将分析这些观察到的捕食者和浮游生物丰度变化的潜在复杂的相互依存关系。为了获得全面的理解，我们将整合数据分析、现场实验和建模方法。具体地说，我们将使用大型浮动中观来测试气候变暖是否是观测到的浮游植物丰度变化的一个主要因素，以及这可能如何影响食物链的其他部分。我们将应用新开发的统计工具来跟踪鱼类种群丰度和生产力，以应对捕捞和资源可获得性的变化。最后，我们将利用这些结果开发现实的海洋-大气模型，其中包括重要的生态相互作用，并提供预测海洋生态系统组成和功能的未来变化的能力。综上所述，这项工作将对预测未来海洋生态变化以及帮助采用基于生态系统的海洋资源管理方法具有重要意义。

My research helps to gain deeper insights into the causes and consequences of recent changes in marine ecosystems. Over the past years we have seen a dramatic shift in perception, towards the realization that the effects of fishing, climate change and pollution have now become dominant ecological drivers in the ocean. My own research has played a major role in this realization, and these topics are now a growing focus of marine science laboratories around the world. Following these developments, the new discipline of 'ecosystem oceanography' has emerged, with a focus on understanding and predicting global change in the oceans from the bottom to the top of the food web. Much of the recent work in my laboratory has focused on top predators, namely large pelagic fish, sharks, and marine mammals, documenting changes in their abundance and diversity from fisheries data and other sources. Increasingly, however, we are discovering concomitant changes at lower trophic levels, particularly in plankton organisms that provide the base of the marine food web, and that may influence changes at upper levels through trophic interactions. Over the next five years my laboratory will analyze the potentially complex interdependencies of these observed changes in predator and plankton abundance. To gain a comprehensive understanding we will integrate data analysis, field experiments, and modeling approaches. Specifically we will use large, floating mesocoms to test whether climate warming is a major factor in observed changes in phytoplankton abundance, and how this may affect the rest of the food web. We will apply newly developed statistical tools for tracking fish stock abundance and productivity in response to both changes in fishing and resource availability. Finally, we will use these results in the development of realistic ocean-atmosphere models that include important ecological interactions and that provide the capacity to predict future changes in the composition and functioning of marine ecosystems. Taken together, this work will be important for forecasting future ecological changes in the ocean, and to help with an ecosystem-based approach to marine resource management.