Abstract
Understanding drivers of ecosystem structure and function is a pervasive goal in academic and applied research. We used 24 synthetic ecosystem-level indices derived from trophic models, and independently derived data for Net Primary Productivity, to investigate drivers of ecosystem structure and function for 43 marine ecosystems distributed in all oceans of the world and including coastal, estuaries, mid-ocean islands, open-ocean, coral reef, continental shelf, and upwelling ecosystems. Of these indices, ecosystem Biomass, Primary Production, Respiration, the ratio of Biomass to Total System Throughput (sum of total energy flow into and out of an ecosystem as well as between ecosystem components), the ratio of Production to Biomass, Residence Time (mean time that a unit of energy remains in the ecosystem), Average Trophic Level, and Relative Ascendency (index of organization and complexity of a food web) displayed relationships with measures of Net Primary Productivity (NPP). Across all ecosystems, relationships were stronger with seasonal and interannual variability of NPP as compared to mean NPP. Both measures of temporal variability were combined into multivariate predictive relationships for each ecosystem index, with r2 values ranging from 0.14 to 0.49 and Akaike’s information criteria values from − 8.44 to 3.26. Our results indicate that despite large geographic and environmental differences, temporal variability of NPP is strongly linked to the structure and function of marine ecosystems.
Highlights
Ever since the inception of ecology as a field of science, a major challenge has been to understand the drivers of ecosystem structure and function (Levin 1995)
Biomass serves as a measure of energy storage in an ecosystem. (2) ‘Primary Production’ (PP) refers to the amount of energy entering an ecosystem to be incorporated into biomass by autotrophs in tons/km2/year
PP serves as the major input of energy into an ecosystem. (3) ‘Respiration’ refers to the amount of energy leaving the system through metabolic processes in tons/km2/year and constitutes the major energetic output of ecosystems. (4) ‘The ratio of Production to Biomass’ (P/B) is a measure of how much production is needed to support each unit of biomass within an ecosystem
Summary
Ever since the inception of ecology as a field of science, a major challenge has been to understand the drivers of ecosystem structure and function (Levin 1995). Ecology has expanded into a multidisciplinary field over the past few decades, whereby a diverse set of approaches to ecological questions have led to a multitude of new insights and breakthroughs (Irschick and others 2013). These recent developments and additions to ecological thinking have opened the door for scientists to overcome the challenges of scale as well as to create a broadly applicable and consistent framework with which to explore the universal drivers of ecosystem structure and function (Heymans and others 2014; Link and others 2015)
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