Collaborative Research: LTREB Renewal: Testing tipping points in a model rocky intertidal meta-ecosystem: Environmental-change, increasing variances, and response mechanisms

This research addresses the problem of how environmental variation alters the stability of rocky shore seaweed and animal populations. In the past decade, the rocky tidal community suffered from sea star wasting disease as well as heat waves, which killed most rocky shore sea stars, and negatively affected regrowth of mussels and seaweeds. The long-term observational data will continue to be collected, allowing for a greater understanding of the impacts of abiotic conditions in the north Pacific Ocean. This research advances society’s understanding of ecosystem stability, using long-term datasets that span decades of steady increases in temperature and punctuated by extreme events stressing organisms in this important habitat, and by pioneering data processing using artificial intelligence technology. Our goals include forecasting changes, and informing managers and policy makers for future planning. The work benefits society through the provision of guidance to managers, training the next generation of scientists, providing a generally applicable model that can benefit societal needs, and informing the public through interactions with the media, community groups, and citizen engagement. Chronic changes in abiotic conditions have enabled empirical investigation of community stability using field-testing of theoretical ideas on how changing ecological processes might affect persistence, resilience, and variability. To date, results from this study provide compelling evidence that the system is sensitive to local, regional and basin-scale environmental shifts. Extension of the time series and expansion to include warmer, southern sites will support forecasting of future states and provide powerful planning tools for managers and policymakers. Specifically, this research tests the hypothesis that despite partial recovery of Oregon and California rocky intertidal communities to recent extreme temperature events, chronic ocean temperature changes and increasing new extreme heat events may cause a state shift in tidal community structure, especially in warmer southern regions. Testing this hypothesis involves building on our long-term data sets to quantify ongoing recovery of (1) sea star populations after a wasting disease event, (2) intertidal communities to disturbance, (3) mussel and sea star performance (growth, reproduction, condition), and (4) environmental variability and disease-altered species interactions. Research methods use photographs of field results, to which we are applying AI-based software for analysis. Further, the research enables detailed estimates of mussel condition, with implication for managing a fisheries resource. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2555909 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Bruce Menge | Institution: Oregon State University, CORVALLIS, OR | Award Amount: $421,661 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2555909 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2555909.html