LIVING RESOURCES 



Chapter 5 



MISSION: 



Knowledge necessary for the intelligent use 

 and management of living marine resources 

 will come increasingly from interdisciplinary 

 study of the mechanisms which produce and 

 sustain marine life. The goal of the Living 

 Resources Program, which in 1971 became the 

 fourth IDOE program area, is improved under- 

 standing of the processes and relationships 

 that exist between the biological aspects of 

 marine organisms and the chemical, physical 

 and geological environment in which they live. 



The ocean can provide a large amount of 

 food, but the quantities which can be har- 

 vested on a sustained basis are limited. Thus, 

 the optimal use of renewable marine re- 

 sources depends on knowledge of the natural 

 productivity of the seas, regional differences, 

 efficiencies of energy transfer from photo- 

 synthetic plants to harvested species and the 

 population dynamics and maximum sustain- 

 able yield of different species. Until more is 

 understood about the influence of tempera- 

 ture, currents, pollutants and weather on 

 marine life, sensible decisions about the man- 

 agement of these resources will not be 

 possible. 



PROGRAM: 



COASTAL UPWELLING 

 ECOSYSTEMS ANALYSIS (CUEA) 



Currently, the Living Resources Program is 

 concentrating on marine ecosystems analysis. 

 Scientists from a variety of disciplines and 

 institutions are trying to unravel the interrela- 

 tionships of marine organisms and their envi- 

 ronments, and to generate models capable of 



predicting trends and changes in these rela- 

 tionships. The first such project is the Coastal 

 Upwelling Ecosystems Analysis (CUEA). The 

 primary objective of CUEA is to understand 

 the coastal upwelling ecosystem so that re- 

 sponses of the system to change may be 

 predicted from monitoring a few key bio- 

 logical, oceanographic and/or meteorological 

 variables. 



Concept 



The upwelling phenomenon is significant 

 because an estimated 50% of the world's fish 

 supply comes from major upwelling areas. 

 Upwelling usually occurs along the continen- 

 tal west coasts at low to mid-latitudes. When 

 favorable winds exist, blowing toward the 

 equator, the earth's rotation produces an off- 

 shore, or Eckman, drift of the upper ocean 

 layers along the coast (Figure 22). This drift, 

 in turn, produces an upwelling of colder, 

 deeper waters near the coast, often a narrow 

 band 10 to 15 km wide. The rich nutrients 

 of the upwelled deeper water cause a rapid 

 growth in the plankton population, upon 

 which, in turn, fish feed. Upwelling is the key 

 to the extremely high fish concentrations 

 found off of Africa, South America and other 

 major coastal upwelling areas (Figure 23). 



Determination of the upwelling system vari- 

 ables hinges on joint physical and biological 

 oceanographic investigations. The framework 

 within which these investigations are to take 

 place is a general ecosystems model (Figure 

 24). Data collection and experiments are 

 guided by distinctive sub-models which make 

 up the more general systems model. Each 

 CUEA program scientist, as part of his own re- 

 search effort, will contribute to building one or 

 more of these sub-models which will be tested 

 and modified continually to conform to new 

 data obtained at sea. This elaboration of the 

 sub-models as new data are obtained will help 



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