Oceanography and Productivity

While fishes, marine mammals, and seabirds are the most visible living marine resources at the top of the food chain upon which we depend, it is the tiniest organisms drifting and swimming with the currents that fuel all life in the sea.

Scientists study these lower trophic levels (LTL) to improve our understanding of the overall ocean ecosystem, how it varies over time, and its response to climate change.

In the Science Plan, the National Research Council recommended that NPRB support fundamental studies of the basic structure and function of ecosystems to better understand the populations they support.

LTL studies also address legislated priorities by specifically addressing needs for marine ecosystem information and pressing fishery management issues that help us better understand the impacts of the environment on upper trophic level species.

Oceanography and productivity research funded by NPRB

Through 2008, the Board has funded 31 LTL projects for a total of $5.1 million, of which 16 have been completed. This section discusses them in three main categories:

• oceanography
• phytoplankton ecology
• zooplankton ecology

Most LTL projects cover several levels, and often are termed nutrient-phytoplankton-zooplankton or NPZ studies, especially for modeling purposes. And many of the 31 projects are continuations of the same research, such as annual support of the Bering Sea moorings to service the hardware and extract the data.

Photo montage: Russ Hopcroft