Systems Biology Of Marine Ecosystems

This book describes the latest advances in systems biology in four plant-based marine ecosystems: seaweeds, seagrasses, microalgae, and corals. Marine organisms that inhabit the oceanic environment experience a diverse range of environmental fluctuations, anthropogenic stress, and threats from invasive species and pathogens. System biology integrates physiology, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics into numerical models and is emerging as an important approach to elucidate the functional adaptations of marine organisms to adverse environmental conditions. This book focuses on how ecophysiology, omics platforms, their integration (a systems biology perspective), and next generation sequencing tools are being used to address the stress response of marine seaweeds, seagrasses, corals, marine microbe diversity, and micro-and macroalgae/corals-bacterial interactions to global climate change and anthropogenic activities. The contents of the book are of special interest to graduate and postgraduate marine biology students and marine biology researchers, particularly those interested in marine ecology, stress physiology of marine macrophytes/corals/phytoplankton, and environmental microbiology. This book would also be of interest to marine engineers engaged in the management and conservation of our valuable marine resources.

Systems Biology Of Marine Ecosystems provides the readers with the insights on the main morphological features in the marine ecosystem and informs them about the various marine vertebrates and invertebrates in the ecosystem. This book also discusses about the planktons found in the marine ecosystem, microbes found in the ecosystem, vegetation in marine ecosystem, tourist attraction for the marine environment, the role of climate change and unethical activities by the humans on the marine ecosystem.

Modelling of marine ecosystems is a rapidly developing branch of interdisciplinary oceanographic research. Introduction to the Modelling of Marine Ecosystems is the first consistent and comprehensive introduction to the development of models of marine ecosystems. It begins with simple first steps of modelling and develops more and more complex models. This step-by-step approach to increasing the complexity of the models is intended to allow students of biological oceanography and interested scientists with only limited experience in mathematical modelling to explore the theoretical framework and familiarize oneself with the methods. The book describes how biological model components can be integrated into three dimensional circulation models and how such models can be used for 'numerical experiments'. The book illustrates the mathematical aspects of modelling and gives application examples. The tutorial aspect of the book is supported by a set of MATLAB programs, which are provided on an accompanying CD-Rom and which can be used to reproduce many of the results presented in the book. Also available in paperback, ISBN 0-444-51704-9

The new edition of this widely respected text providescomprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the effects ofbiological–physical interactions in the oceans from themicroscopic to the global scale. considers the influence of physical forcing on biologicalprocesses in a wide range of marine habitats including coastalestuaries, shelf-break fronts, major ocean gyres, coral reefs,coastal upwelling areas, and the equatorial upwelling system investigates recent significant developments in this rapidlyadvancing field includes new research suggesting that long-term variability inthe global atmospheric circulation affects the circulation of oceanbasins, which in turn brings about major changes in fish stocks.This discovery opens up the exciting possibility of being able topredict major changes in global fish stocks written in an accessible, lucid style, this textbook isessential reading for upper-level undergraduates and graduatestudents studying marine ecology and biological oceanography

Global changes, including climate change and intensive fishing, are having significant impacts on the world's oceans. This book advances knowledge of the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems and their major sub-systems, and how they respond to physical forcing.

Techniques developed for enclosing viable natural planktonic ecosystems pro vided the opportunity for prolonged and detailed investigation of dynamic events within the pelagic system of a known water body. Recent investigations into plankton ecology, using enclosure systems in dif ferent marine environments, are discussed in relation to the data obtained from the Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada, plastic-sphere experiments of 1960 and 1962. Three types of modern enclosure experiments are recognized: floating systems within nutrient levels maintained or running down, and benthic attached systems. The review largely discusses results from the two kinds of floating systems. Processes at several trophic levels have been investigated in enclosures. This review attempts to draw together details from all experimental systems to emphasize the enclosures' contribution to our understanding of planktonic systems. Enclosures made it possible to examine primary production processes, particularly in relation to inorganic nutrient availability and water-column sta bility. Recent experiments have used the understanding of these processes as a management technique in maintaining different planktonic systems. Relation ships between primary and secondary trophic levels are not always easy to inter pret, since the growth of primary carnivore populations can often determine the survival of zooplankton populations. Nevertheless, the development of co horts of herbivorous zooplankton has been followed in several enclosures, yield ing useful information on development times and production rates. In enclosed systems it is thus possible to directly relate tertiary level production to inorganic nutrient input, and to calculate production rates and exchange efficiencies at several trophic levels.

In a perspective of sustainable management, the balance between ecological dynamics, social and economic are now at the heart of ecological modeling and environmental strategies screenwriting. Diversity and marine ecosystems function illustrates biodiversity, habitat diversity, structures and food webs in various oceans of the world and systems: pelagic and benthic ecosystems, coral reefs and seagrass beds, oasis of hydrothermal vents ridges or areas rich upwelling. Appropriate observation methods, long-term monitoring and modeling reveal the complexity of systems, trophic interactions and spatiotemporal dynamics. The ecosystem approach is a prerequisite to assess the state of these systems, their living resources and ecological services involved in local and global environmental changes.

Marine Ecology: Processes, Systems, and Impacts offers a carefully balanced and stimulating survey of marine ecology, introducing the key processes and systems from which the marine environment is formed, and the issues and challenges which surround its future conservation.