Population and community patterns of marine fish diversity: effects of exploitation and climate

海洋生物多样性，特别是鱼类多样性的模式，以及在种群和社区一级维持或改变多样性的过程，仍然是我目前研究的重点。这导致了对变化的多样性对生态系统结构和功能的影响的审查。所调查的大陆架生态系统变化多样性的主要驱动因素是：1)捕捞效应，其规模和程度(直接和间接)近几十年来急剧增加；2)气候多变性。我们最近的研究表明，大型捕食者的枯竭可以通过级联营养相互作用，延伸到链的底部，改变初级生产和营养循环，导致一些大型开放海洋系统的重组。在群落一级对鱼类物种多样性的计划研究是基于现代生态科学和保护生物学的基石之一--物种区域关系或SAR。我打算利用这种关系来了解海洋鱼类群落是如何组织的，并确定根据这种关系制定的养护协议是否可行，是否合理。前一项工作将涉及确定特区存在的生态基础。这将涉及评估生境多样性、资源集中度和面积本身的相对影响，正如岛屿生物地理学的平衡理论所描述的那样，作为形成经验关系的过程。后者更实用的推力包括：预测栖息地丧失造成的物种损失，系统评估不同开发制度地区的SAR坡度，以及从保护区设计的角度确定更大的坡度是否真的更有利于维持生物多样性。我继续利用从西北大西洋各国政府机构进行的标准化研究调查中获得的监测数据。这些调查以一致的抽样方法为基础，在广泛的空间(100-1000多公里)和时间尺度(大多数是自1970年代初建立和维持的)上，产生了多个营养级别的丰度、空间分布和物种多样性变化的详细时间序列。

Marine biodiversity, particularly patterns of fish diversity and the processes that maintain or change diversity at both the population and community level continue to be focal points of my current research. This has led to an examination of the consequences of changing diversity on ecosystem structure and function. The primary drivers of changing diversity in the continental shelf ecosystems under investigation are i) fishing effects, whose scale and magnitude (both direct and indirect) has increased dramatically in recent decades and ii) climate variability. Our recent research has revealed that depletion of large predators can cause a restructuring of some large, open-ocean systems through cascading trophic interactions, extending to the base of chain and altering primary production and nutrient cycling. Planned research on fish species diversity at the community level is based on one of the cornerstones of modern ecological science and conservation biology - the species area relationship or SAR. I intend to use this relationship for understanding how marine fish communities are organized and for determining if conservation protocols that follow from it are practicable and can be justified. The former thrust will involve a determination of the ecological basis for the existence of SAR. This will involve an assessment of the relative influence of habitat diversity, resource concentration and area per se, as described in the equilibrium theory of island biogeography, as the processes shaping the empirical relationship. The latter, more applied thrust involves prediction of species losses from habitat losses, systematic evaluation of the slope of SAR from areas subjected to varying exploitation regimes, and determining whether or not bigger really is better for maintenance of biodiversity, in terms of reserve design. I continue to make use of monitoring data obtained from standardized research surveys conducted by government agencies across the Northwest Atlantic. The surveys, based on consistent sampling methodology, have yielded detailed time series of variation in abundance, spatial distribution and species diversity across multiple trophic levels at broad spatial (100-1000+ kms) and temporal scales (most established and maintained since early 1970s).