For Immediate Release

1
For Immediate Release July XX, 2004 Media
Contact NSF, Cheryl Dybas, [phone],
cdybas_at_nsf.gov NSF Awards 5 Million Grants to
Two Ocean Sites for Long-Term Ecological
Research Arlington, Va.Coral reefs and coastal
upwelling ecosystems are the subjects of two new
Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites
awarded funding by the National Science
Foundation (NSF). With the addition of the
Moorea Coral Reef LTER Site and the California
Current System LTER Site, there are now 26
NSF-funded sites in the LTER network. The two
newest sites will receive approximately 820,000
for the next six years, for a total of about 5
million each. These two new sites significantly
augment the LTER network, which had included only
one marine site, in the Antarctic, says Henry
Gholz, director of NSFs LTER program. These
awards ensure that high biodiversity and
productivity ecosystems in most of the worlds
major biomes, both on land and in the oceans, are
represented. Moorea Coral Reef LTER
Site Occurring mostly in warm, nutrient-poor
waters, coral reefs rank near the top of all
ecosystems, when it comes to biodiversity and
annual productivity. Worldwide, coral reefs
support one-third of the known species of marine
fish, although they make up only about one
percent of all benthic, or bottom, habitats.
These large and diverse communities are fueled
by efficient nutrient recycling processes, and by
the structure provided by reef-building corals,
says Phil Taylor, director of NSFs biological
oceanography program. Stony corals are the
foundation upon which tens of thousands of other
species rely. In turn, the relationship between
corals and photosynthetic zooxanthellae that live
within their tissues is the key to the entire
system. Without zooxanthellae, the coral reef
ecosystem would not exist. Research at the new
French Polynesia site will help scientists better
understand coral reef processes that drive the
functions of this ecosystem the nature of coral
reef animal and plant community structure and
diversity and the factors that determine the
abundance and dynamics of related populations.
This understanding, says Taylor, will allow us
to make more accurate predictions of how coral
reef ecosystems respond to environmental change,
whether human-induced or from natural cycles.
The new coral reef LTER site will be located at
the site of the University of Californias field
laboratory on the island of Moorea in French
Polynesia. The four principal investigators for
the award are affiliated with the University of
California at Santa Barbara (Russell Schmitt and
Sally Holbrook), and California State University
at Northridge (Robert Carpenter and Peter
Edmunds). In addition, scientists at the
University of Hawaii, the University of
California at Santa Cruz, Scripps Institution of
Oceanography and the University of California at
Davis comprise the interdisciplinary team of
ecologists, physical oceanographers,
paleoceanographers and population geneticists on
the project.

California Current Ecosystem
LTER Site The California Current wends along
just off California shores as part of the
circulation of the north Pacific Ocean. The
current is the driving force behind whats known
as a coastal upwelling biome, among the most
productive coastal ecosystems in the worlds
oceans. The California Current System sustains
active fisheries for a variety of finfish and
shellfish, modulates weather patterns and the
hydrologic cycle of much of the western United
States, and plays a vital role in the economy of
myriad coastal communities, says
Taylor. Understanding the mechanisms of changes
in coastal ecosystems is of vital importance to
the management of living and non-living resources
in the coastal zone, scientists believe. In the
California Current System, for example,
successful management of commercially important
resources such as anchovy, sardine, several
species of Pacific salmon, squid, Dungeness crab,
abalone and others requires knowledge of the
causes and consequences of system variability,
says Taylor. The California Current System is
the eastern limb of the large, clockwise
circulation of the north Pacific Ocean. As some
of the water from the westward drift turns south
and becomes the California Current, it brings
with it cool, fresh water from the sub-arctic.
The California Current System off central and
southern California consists of the broad,
southward-flowing California Current a
persistent but variable subsurface California
Undercurrent centered on the continental slope
that carries water poleward from the tropics and
a circulation over and near the continental shelf
that is highly seasonal, shifting from a
windward-driven equatorward flow that brings
coastal upwelling in spring and summer, to a
poleward flow in fall and winter. Scientists
working at the California Current Ecosystem LTER
Site will conduct research on how the influences
of El Nino and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a
decades-long climate phenomenon, as well as
multi-decadal warming trends noted in records
kept by research institutions along the
California coast, affect the California Current
System. Researchers hope to develop an
understanding of how these phenomena affect
changes in food webs, predator-prey
relationships, movement of organisms into and out
of the region and the transfer of assemblages of
organisms along the California coast. The five
principal investigators for the award blend
expertise in ocean ecology, and chemical and
physical oceanography, and are affiliated with
the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La
Jolla, California Mark Ohman Katherine Barbeau
Ralf Goericke Michael Landry and Arthur Miller.
Scientists from the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)s National
Marine Fisheries Service, Georgia Institute of
Technology, Duke University and Point Reyes Bird
Observatory round out the interdisciplinary team.