PARENT SESSION
Symposium 22: Expanding Scales, Expanding Perspectives: New Insights into Marine Ecosystem Dynamics
Organized by: P Raimondi and B Menge
Friday, August 8. 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, SITCC Oglethorpe Auditorium.

Unexpected dynamism in zonation and abundance revealed by long-term monitoring on rocky shores.

Raimondi, Peter^*,1, Lohse, Dave ¹, Blanchette, Carol², ¹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Santa Cruz, California² Marine Science Institute, Santa Barbara, California

ABSTRACT- A disproportionate number of the studies that have provided the foundations for current ecological theory have been manipulative in nature. While the experimental approach has played an essential role in our investigations of the processes that affect communities, it is increasingly clear that the detection of an ecological process is not equivalent to a demonstration of its importance. This is a much more difficult task, and our lack of success in this regard has been the basis for potent criticism. Perhaps the biggest impediment to our development of general rules for community organization is a lack of knowledge about the spatial and temporal variability of natural communities. This type of information is needed to provide a background against which the results of short-term, manipulative studies can be discussed. Here we report the results of perhaps the most spatially and temporally comprehensive study done in the rocky intertidal system. We have found extremely strong latitudinal patterns of community organization, as well as equally strong site-specific temporal dynamics. These results can be used to assess the relative importance of physical and biological forcing across spatial and temporal scales.

Key words: spatial and temporal variability, ecological monitoring, intertidal, physical forcing