Marine ecosystems may be structured according to resource availability (“bottom-up” control), or by predation (“top-down” control).  Recent studies have found that temperature is a particularly strong correlate of trophic control, following a non-linear relationship with resource control dominant in areas of mid- to high temperature and consumer control dominant in areas of low and very high temperature.  However, there was minimal abundance data of trophically-related species from areas of highest temperature included in the formation of this model, therefore it is uncertain whether the model is truly applicable to ecosystems at these temperatures.  For this project I will be attempting to determine whether pelagic marine food webs in areas of high temperature follow the proposed non-linear model and fall under mainly consumer control, using abundance time series of trophically-related species and temperature time series.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Samantha Crowley
HonoursStudent
Dalhousie University
Email: samantha.crowley@dal.ca
Phone: 519-807-3762