The 25th anniversary of PICES is in San Diego, CA from Nov. 1 - 14. I am co-convening a session entitled "Factors that make or break trophic linkages" with ecologists, oceanographers, and social scientists. You can submit an abstract here - http://meetings.pices.int/meetings/annual/2016/pices/submissions
The session description is below: Mechanistic linkages from physics to phytoplankton to zooplankton to fish remain central to understanding climate forcing on marine ecosystems. Thus, it will be useful to understand how ecosystem linkages and species distribution are influenced by ocean features and how these linkages translate through the food web. Specifically, what information can be gained from moving beyond a single linkage (e.g. phytoplankton to zooplankton) towards a comparison across trophic levels in three very different North Pacific ecosystems. Examples of such factors may include but are not limited to broad scale anomalies (e.g. the blob, ENSO events, Kuroshio / Oyashio dynamics), temporal mismatches among physical processes, prey, and predators (match / mismatch hypothesis), and population fluctuations (e.g. lipid poor vs. lipid rich zooplankton). We have suggested (but are not limited to) three study areas, the California Current, the Kuroshio Current, and the Bering Sea to examine linkages from physics to phytoplankton, phytoplankton to zooplankton, zooplankton to fish, birds and mammals, and fish to birds and mammals. By looking at multiple ecosystems and trends and anomalies across multiple trophic linkages, we can better understand how climate variability and anthropogenic forcing may cascade through these marine ecosystems. We propose a topic session that will involve participation from multiple PICES committees and will focus on physical forcing and trophic linkages from physics to top predators. Specifically, we request presentations on topics that (a) examine how changes in physical oceanography lead to long term trends or anomalous responses in primary production, zooplankton, fish, and top predators, (b) examine how trophic relationships may respond to physical forcing and changes in species abundance and spatial distribution, and (c) test for threshold responses (non-linearity) across trophic levels to changes in physical oceanography and the population dynamics of other species (competitors, prey, and predators).
