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Science 4 June 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5676, pp. 1463 - 1466
DOI: 10.1126/science.1094858
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Review

Challenges of Modeling Ocean Basin Ecosystems

Brad deYoung,1* Mike Heath,2 Francisco Werner,3 Fei Chai,4 Bernard Megrey,5 Patrick Monfray6

With increasing pressure for a more ecological approach to marine fisheries and environmental management, there is a growing need to understand and predict changes in marine ecosystems. Biogeochemical and physical oceanographic models are well developed, but extending these further up the food web to include zooplankton and fish is a major challenge. The difficulty arises because organisms at higher trophic levels are longer lived, with important variability in abundance and distribution at basin and decadal scales. Those organisms at higher trophic levels also have complex life histories compared to microbes, further complicating their coupling to lower trophic levels and the physical system. We discuss a strategy that builds on recent advances in modeling and observations and suggest a way forward that includes approaches to coupling across trophic levels and the inclusion of uncertainty.

1 Physics and Physical Oceanography, Memorial University, St. John's, Canada.
2 Marine Ecosystems Program, Fisheries Research Services, Aberdeen, Scotland.
3 Marine Sciences Department, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3300, USA.
4 School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469, USA.
5 National Marine Fisheries Service, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA 98115 USA.
6 Laboratoire d'études en géophysique et océanographie spatiales, Toulouse, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bdeyoung{at}physics.mun.ca

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)