CORVALLIS - A pioneering coalition of four universities in Oregon and California that is changing marine research and trying to answer some of the "big questions" that have long eluded many marine scientists, has just received another $3.9 million from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to continue its work in 2004.

The Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans, or PISCO, was considered unconventional and risky when it first began in 1999, said Jane Lubchenco, a distinguished professor of zoology at Oregon State University.

"Luckily, the Packard Foundation was looking for bold ideas that would deliver new scientific knowledge and be useful to society," Lubchenco said. "PISCO is a commitment to large-scale research over a long period of time, and nothing like this really existed before."

Before PISCO, researchers could study an interesting ocean phenomenon in one site but would have no idea whether the same thing was happening even a few miles away, or what its larger implications were. That type of piecemeal approach was clearly inadequate to document or understand the large-scale patterns or the changes sweeping through the oceans, the researchers believed, so scientists from OSU, Stanford University, UC-Santa Cruz and UC-Santa Barbara formed a consortium to study a vast area of the near-shore portion of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem.

The work concentrated largely on an area from 0-5 miles offshore, all along the West Coast of the U.S., which has been largely unexplored in most past oceanographic research.

"In focusing on the near-shore coastal waters and shorelines, PISCO complements the strong oceanographic programs offshore," said Jack Barth, an OSU professor of oceanography and co-principal investigator with PISCO. "The integrated understanding is providing new and exciting insights."

The potential of the project quickly became apparent, Lubchenco said, and it has attracted almost $40 million in funding during the past five years, especially with added support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Robert and Betty Lundeen Fund, and the National Science Foundation. The funding supports research and equipment, training, education and communication outreach efforts, and ultimately aims to provide the best science to inform policies and decision-making processes.

In this five-year period, PISCO's 13 principal investigators, 30 postdoctoral students and 64 graduate students have produced 144 publications, involved more than 200 undergraduate and even high school students, and helped employ 60 technicians.

This summer, OSU's research group by itself will involve the efforts of about 50 scientists, students and technicians. A long-term goal of the program is to train the next generation of students in interdisciplinary research concepts.

The broad nature of PISCO research brings together experts in oceanography, ecology, genetics, molecular biology, physiology, remote sensing, biomechanics, and many other fields. A new research vessel, the R/V Elakha, is uniquely designed to work in the near-shore marine environment and has greatly expanded the work that can be done.

"At any one time, we can now study a particular site with aerial photography, dives, instrumentation on both ship and shore, and we can track events as they happen, along with the associated currents, winds, upwelling, temperature, salinity and other factors," said Bruce Menge, who with Lubchenco shares the Wayne and Gladys Valley Professorship in Marine Biology at OSU. "This gives us the type of data we need to really unravel some of these mysteries."

The findings already produced have been invaluable, the researchers say:

  • A far better understanding is beginning to emerge of recruitment, the arrival of new young into a population of marine plants or animals, often from far away.

     

  • A comprehensive inventory of biodiversity in the near-shore Pacific Ocean is being developed up and down the West Coast, providing a good baseline for future research.

     

  • The impacts of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a 20-30 year cycle of warming and cooling ocean conditions, is being analyzed and its effects on marine life are becoming better understood.

     

  • Sampling is being done at hundreds of sites, kelp forests are being explored, and ecological shifts are being tracked, producing useful knowledge to guide management and conservation decisions such as the design of marine reserves.

     

  • Advanced new technologies such as trace element chemistry, genetic studies and DNA fingerprinting are now being routinely used in marine research, offering new insights into plant and animal life.

     

  • Unusual events, such as a hypoxic "dead zone" that formed off the Oregon coast in 2002, can now be quickly identified, analyzed and explained.

"The research we were able to do on the hypoxic zone was a nice example of our ability to respond to an unanticipated but important event," Lubchenco said.

"In a fairly short time our oceanographic colleagues working farther offshore and the PISCO team working inshore were able to determine that a mass of sub-arctic, cold water that was low in oxygen but high in nutrients had become trapped at shallow depths inshore of Heceta Banks," she said. "High nutrients from upwelled water triggered algal growth whose decomposition further depleted the waters of oxygen, causing large fish and shellfish mortality. We explained the physical processes and gained a better understanding of how these complex systems can change quite rapidly when a certain 'tipping point' is reached. Before we had PISCO, those types of studies were impossible."

The success of the consortium has drawn inquiries from around the world, and researchers in Alaska, Maine, Chile and South Africa are studying the PISCO model. If funding can be sustained, the program should continue to provide discoveries and insights to aid management, the scientists said.

Source: 

Jane Lubchenco, 541-737-5337

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