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“Meso-Marine Ecosystems”: Management Units for the North Pacific?

“Meso-Marine Ecosystems”: Management Units for the North Pacific?. W. Sydeman 1 , S. Batten 2 , D. Hyrenbach 1 , M. Henry 1 , C. Rintoul 1, D. Welch 3 , K. Morgan 4. 1 PRBO Conservation Science, Petaluma, CA, U.S.A. 2 SAHFOS, Plymouth, U.K. 3 Kintama Research, Nanaimo, B.C., Canada

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“Meso-Marine Ecosystems”: Management Units for the North Pacific?

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  1. “Meso-Marine Ecosystems”: Management Units for the North Pacific? W. Sydeman1, S. Batten2, D. Hyrenbach 1, M. Henry1, C. Rintoul1, D. Welch3, K. Morgan4 1PRBO Conservation Science, Petaluma, CA, U.S.A. 2 SAHFOS, Plymouth, U.K. 3Kintama Research, Nanaimo, B.C., Canada 4Canadian Wildlife Service, Sidney, B.C., Canada

  2. Macroecology as a Cornerstone forEcosystem-based Management • EBM requires identification of appropriate areas for management and human (stakeholder) involvement • Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) have been suggested as appropriate for EBM, but may not reflect the extent of ecosystems (too large/too small? ecotones/edges?) or the scales of significant ecosystem and human interactions • Therefore, macroecological investigations within and across LME on community structure, biodiversity, and scale-dependent ecological interactions (temporal and spatial) are required to define eco-regions for management

  3. Hypothesis • Top predator (marine bird) and plankton “communities” may be used to delineate North Pacific eco-regions • Why? Indicators of habitats on multiple scales (water masses to “hotspots”, persistent and ephemeral ecosystem structures (e.g., fronts/eddies) • Indicators of temporal environmental variability (e.g., ENSO, regime shifts, climate change), and effects on food webs

  4. …a slight digression… The Atlantic Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) Project Long-term ocean ecosystem monitoring (initiated in ~1930 by SAHFOS) Marine ecology, climate change, fisheries management, biogeography, etc.

  5. A CPR is a simple, rugged, mechanical device, towed behind merchant ships, that filters plankton from the seawater

  6. Samples in North Atlantic database (to 2005); imagine the same thing for the North Pacific

  7. Fisheries Forecasting Application, North Sea Beaugrand et al. 2003 Nature 426, 661-664.

  8. The Pacific CPR Survey (2000 - ?) Both North – South and East – West Transects Batten, S.D., D.Welch and D. Mackas, PIs

  9. The East – West Transect , 7500 km

  10. Integrated Pacific CPR – Marine Bird and Mammal Survey (E-W transect only) • Motivation: study upper- and lower trophic levels simultaneously • 4+ years (June 02 – present) • 12 integrated predator/plankton surveys (166 sea days; ~23,000 km, database available, NPRB)

  11. Batten, S.D., et al. 2006. Characterising Meso-Marine Ecosystems (MME) in the North Pacific. • Deep Sea Research II 53:270-290 • plankton and seabird “ecoregions” match in space (spring 02) • plankton and seabird biomass positively correlated • ecoregions explained by physical environment • 10 “MMEs” (potential management regions) identified June 2002

  12. Question for today: • Are plankton/seabird MMEs persistent between seasons and years?

  13. Methods • Plankton: 5 years, Summer, Presence /Absence… • Seabirds: 4 years, Spring-Summer-Fall; Relative density of 23 “common” species • Hierarchical Clustering

  14. Plankton, All Years (dots replaced with lines) 6 4/5 3 2 7/8/9? 1 10 NOTE: a cluster color from one year to the next does not represent a particular community – colors show eco-regions not specific “communities” between years

  15. Ben Saenz The Birds…

  16. 9 ecoregions 8 ecoregions

  17. Seabird Community Structure Through Time • Season: little persistence in ecoregions • Yearly: moderate persistence; most ecoregions represented annually, with less variation in frequency • More variation across seasons than years Spring Bubble size proportional to frequency

  18. Summary and Conclusions • (1) Plankton, seabird communities reveal persistent eco-regions in GOA, central Bering, greater heterogeneity in West • coastal B.C., Gulf of Alaska “east”, Gulf of Alaska “west”) – 3 eco-regions (persistent) • Unimak Pass Area – 1 or 2 ecoregions (ecotone) • Central Bering Sea – 1 ecoregion (persistent) • coastal Japan; Oyashio/western subarctic gyre and western Bering Sea - 2-4 ecoregions (not persistent) Why? Diversity? Greater response to climate? • 7 – 10 eco-regions along this E-W transect • (2) That being said, area boundaries unclear – continuum in community structure, messy (especially highly-mobile birds) • (3) Integrated CPR Survey ideal for determining eco-regions and appropriate spatial units for management; however, future of survey is uncertain……

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