Across the Land-Sea Boundary with an IOOS Informed Seascape Ecology Supporting Ecosystem Management John P. Manderson1 and Josh

Across the land-sea boundary with an IOOS informed seascape ecology supporting ecosystem management John P. Manderson1 and Josh T. Kohut2 The co-authors contributed equally to the development of this white paper 1NOAA/NMFS/NEFSC James J. Howard Laboratory, Highlands, NJ 07732 2Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901 “..comparison of marine and terrestrial application of paradigms developed on dynamics has more than theoretical land to the problems of ocean interest. As we utilize marine and management fundamentally flawed. terrestrial environments, the The rapid evolution of the consequences, deliberate or accidental, Integrated Ocean Observation System depend on [ecosystem] responses to (IOOS) made possible through physical and chemical change. The interdisciplinary partnerships and imposition of terrestrial standards for networked data sharing provides marine problems may produce too strict descriptions of coastal ocean or too lax criteria--or most likely quite hydrography and hydrodynamics at fine inappropriate ones” (Steele, 1991) scales of space and time and regional spatial extents. This allows hydrography 1. Introduction and hydrodynamics to be placed at the Ecosystem assessment and foundation of a seascape ecology in the management in the sea is holistic, based upon interdisciplinary science that considers physical, chemical and biological processes, including feedbacks with human ecological systems, that structure and regulate marine ecosystems. Space and time based tools for the management of human activities in the sea need to be informed by a broad scale habitat ecology that reflects the dynamic realities of the ocean. Current spatial management strategies including marine spatial planning (MSP) and ocean zoning are based upon the patch-mosaic paradigm of terrestrial landscape ecology modified to consider principles of dispersal ecology, primarily for pelagic early life history stages. This Figure 1. Ecosystems on land (above) operate modification is not enough because at space-time scales orders of magnitude slower fundamental differences in the role fluid than turbulent features of the atmosphere while variability in marine ecosystems (below) properties and processes play in matches the scales of variability of turbulence controlling ecological processes on land in the ocean fluid. (From Steele, 1991 and and in the sea makes the blanket Mamayev, 1996) way that geography and geophysics mosaic paradigm of habitat in which appropriately serve as the foundation of patches are defined by sharp gradients in terrestrial landscape ecology. IOOS not vegetation and geomorphology. only provides the ocean data required to Geography and geological processes, develop seascape ecology but also the particularly soil development, that infrastructure and expertise to control fundamental processes including operationalize it for regional ecosystem primary productivity in terrestrial assessment and adaptive co- ecosystems are the foundations of management. Finally, regional IOOS landscape classification. In terrestrial associations are cooperative partnerships ecosystems, many of the most important of academic, government and private organisms and processes are decoupled industry experts from diverse fields and from the atmosphere by gravity and interests. As a result the IOOS "culture" physiological adaptation to extreme can foster the collaborative development variations in atmospheric properties, of an interdisciplinary seascape science including temperature. As a result the that is more likely to lead to effective primary features of terrestrial habitats and less adversarial strategies of regional and ecosystems are physical structures ecosystem co-management that operate created by landform and plant at space-time scales more closely communities that can be modified by matching those of the ecosystem itself. disturbance. Community compositions are determined by climate. However, 2. Seascapes are not landscapes the role of the atmospheric fluid is of In 1984 Risser et al summarized secondary importance and the space- deliberations of a workshop held to time scales of terrestrial ecosystems are develop a modern framework for the much slower than the atmosphere (Fig science of landscape ecology based upon 1). theoretical and empirical underpinnings In contrast, the ocean is highly of a broad scale spatially explicit viscous and has a density close to that of ecology useful for the management of living tissues. Most marine organisms terrestrial resources. The foundations of are therefore nearly buoyant in a fluid this synthesis rested on (1) developments that has dynamics that control their in satellite remote sensing that allowed motions and those of other important researchers to place fine scale ecological particles. Since the basic processes of studies in broader spatial contexts; (2) cellular metabolism evolved in the sea, advances in ecological theory that most living tissues are also nearly elucidated the role of dispersal and isosmotic with seawater. This contrasts connectivity in determining regional starkly with terrestrial organisms whose community dynamics; and (3) the advent intracellular concentrations of solutes of modern computing that allowed and water are dramatically different than researchers to store, analyze, and model the surrounding atmosphere. Finally the large amounts of spatially and specific heat capacity and thermal temporally explicit data and explore conductivity of seawater are about four relationships between the changing and twenty-three times that of landscape patterns and the processes atmosphere, respectively. As a result, potentially causing them. Landscape marine organisms experience much ecology rests primarily upon the patch slower rates and ranges of temperature change than do terrestrial organisms. expertise of its diverse partners, now Warm-blooded organisms are rare in the allows for the development of seascape ocean where the required oxygen is ecology with a regional spatial scope limited and the temperature of the fluid that reflects the realities of the ocean. regulates critical rates across all levels of Like landscape ecology's modern ecological organization from the cell to synthesis (Risser, 1984), an IOOS the ecosystem as a whole. informed seascape ecology could Processes that control primary provide the theoretical and empirical productivity on land and the sea are also underpinnings for the broad scale fundamentally different. In the ocean spatially and temporally explicit ecology nutrients required by plants are required for the regional assessment and constantly falling out of sunlit surface management of ocean resources. waters where photosynthesis is possible. Seascape science will integrate the fields As a result, tiny fast living plants with of fisheries oceanography, marine high surface to volume ratios are entirely habitat ecology, and ecosystem science dependent on the plumbing of the ocean with hydrography and hydrodynamics at to deliver nutrients into the sunlit surface its foundation, just as terrestrial layers from sometimes remote land or landscape ecology rests appropriately on deeper waters sources. As a result the foundation of geography and phytoplankton have very fast population geophysics. dynamics to which other members of marine food webs must respond. In 4. Toward an IOOS informed contrast, primary productivity on land seascape ecology depends on slow and local nutrient We took advantage of the IOOS regeneration processes in the soil at the collaborative culture to form an interface with a nearly transparent interdisciplinary workgroup of habitat atmosphere where sunlight is rarely in scientists, oceanographers, fishery short supply. As a result plants at the managers, social scientists, and base of terrestrial food web are often fishermen from academia, government immobile, long lived, and have slow and industry to develop ecologically population dynamics which higher informed habitat models for the purpose trophic levels respond to. of addressing issues of the by-catch of Due to the tight coupling of butterfish (Peprilus triacanthus) in the physiology, movement of organisms and longfin squid (Doryteuthis pealeii) other critical ecological processes to the fishery. We held workshops to combine oceans fluid, the fluid is the primary scientists’ and fishermen’s knowledge driver that structures seascapes and into a single model of butterfish habitat regulates seascape processes. As a result made using National Marine Fisheries the space-time scales of marine Service (NOAA/NMFS) surveys of ecosystems match those of the turbulent organisms and hydrography, and oceans fluid (Fig. 1). satellite and high-frequency radar measurements of ocean properties and 3. The role of IOOS in seascape processes provided by the Mid-Atlantic ecology Regional Association Coastal Ocean The presence of IOOS, including Observing System (MARACOOS), a its infrastructure, data, models and the regional component of IOOS (Manderson et al., 2011). During the workshops scientists and fishermen each made “mental models” that included environmental variables each group considered important in defining habitat. Over lunch the two models were constructed and evaluated using cross- validation in a butterfish "smackdown". Following lunch we discussed results of the “smackdown” and the ecological mechanisms potentially responsible for habitat associations described by scientists and fishermen. Following the Figure 2. Butterfish habitat preference workshops

Load more