Ecosystem to macroecological tests of how disturbance alters marine food webs

海洋为我们的社会提供了重要的服务，包括海鲜，旅游和气候调节。然而，在过去十年中，过度捕捞和气候变化显然是严重的威胁。面对这些日益严重的威胁，科学家面临的关键挑战是确定海洋生态系统如何运作，从而确定哪些组件和过程对我们来说是最重要的，以确保我们拥有健康的海洋，可以长期提供生态系统服务。为了应对这一挑战，我的实验室将进行详细的原位观察，实验和收集。此外，我们将进行最先进的统计分析，将新获得的高分辨率卫星遥感数据（包括海表温度和生产力）与来自海洋监测计划的物种丰度和大小数据结合起来。重点是珊瑚礁。这些具有重要经济意义的生态系统是世界上最受威胁的生态系统之一。我们研究太平洋中西部的珊瑚礁，因为这一地区包括世界上最原始的偏远珊瑚礁，拥有健康的珊瑚和丰富的捕食者。以前的研究表明，虽然生物多样性对生态系统功能很重要，但功能多样性（可以执行所有生态系统“任务”的物种）和冗余（每个任务有多个物种）可能比物种的绝对数量更重要。在这些“任务”中，捕食对于稳定生态系统可能特别重要，因为捕食者可以稳定猎物种群，防止它们垄断空间或能量。通过研究完整的珊瑚礁，并将它们与经历更大人类影响的珊瑚礁进行比较，我们将能够辨别哪些生态系统组成部分和过程实际上是最重要的。这项研究将为珊瑚礁保护提供信息，并为加拿大海洋生态系统的管理提供一般性见解。

Oceans provide our society with important services including seafood, tourism, and climate regulation. Over the past decade, however, it has become clear that overfishing and climate change are serious threats. In the face of these mounting threats, the critical challenge for scientists is to determine how oceanic ecosystems work, and thus which components and processes are most essential for us to protect to ensure we have healthy oceans that can deliver ecosystem services over the long-term.To meet this challenge, my lab will carry out detailed in situ observations, experiments, and collections. Further, we will conduct state-of-the-art statistical analyses coupling newly available, high-resolution, satellite remote sensing data, including sea surface temperature and productivity, with species abundance and size data from ocean-wide monitoring programs. Our focus is coral reefs. These diverse economically important ecosystems are among the world's most threatened. We study coral reefs of the central-western Pacific Ocean because this region includes remote reefs that are the world's most pristine, with healthy corals and abundant predators. Previous research has shown that although biodiversity is important for ecosystem function, functional diversity (species that can perform all ecosystem 'tasks') and redundancy (multiple species per task) may be more important than the sheer number of species. Of these 'tasks', predation may be particularly important for stabilizing ecosystems, because predators can stabilize prey populations, preventing them from monopolizing space or energy. By studying intact coral reefs, and comparing them with ones experiencing greater human impacts, we will be able to discern which ecosystem components and processes are in fact most important. This research will inform coral reef conservation, and also provide general insights relevant to the management of Canada's oceanic ecosystems.