• What is the flux of dissolved and particulate material brought into this boundary zone 

 by rivers and carried out across shelf areas to the deep ocean? How do these fluxes vary 

 from place to place, with time, and as a result of biological and chemical alteration 

 processes? 



The major elements of this initiative are: 



• Multicomponent, multidisciplinary field programs in representative coastal regions; 



• Extensive use of satellite imagery (physical dynamics from altimetric, scatterometric, 



and infrared temperature measurements; primary production from the ocean color 

 imager) and airborne remote sensing (wind stress, infrared and color imagery ,and 

 air-dropped XBTs) coupled with In situ physical, chemical, and biological observations; 



• Development of rapid biological sampling techniques and tools to analyze distributions and 



productivity on time and space scales appropriate to those of the relevant physical and 

 chemical processes; and 



•Development and expanded use of computers and computer modeling in handling large data 

 sets, guiding the field programs, interpreting data, and assessing the system's 

 predictability. 



Funds required during FY 1 988-92 average about $1 6M per year and will support the design 

 and implementation of several pilot field experiments to test the integration of a diverse suite of 

 new sampling technologies and the ability to quantify dynamic processes and flux measurements. 

 Full-scale field programs based on the results of these pilot experiments will follow in FY 1993 

 at a cost of about $24IVI per year. Ship and facilities costs are included. A remote-sensing 

 research aircraft will be required for this initiative beginning in FY 1989. It will also benefit 

 the other global ocean studies. 



Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics and Recruitment 



Over the next decade, one of the most practically important and scientifically challenging areas 

 of marine research is that of recruitment of marine organisms. Age-classes of nekton and 

 benthos frequently vary in abundance by orders of magnitude, usually due to variable survival 

 of larval or juvenile stages. Climate, physical factors, and variability in primary production, 

 secondary production, and predation have been hypothesized to regulate nekton and benthos 

 age-class success. We are now at a point in the development of the field where many of these 

 basic recruitment mechanisms can be studied effectively . 



Some of the major questions to be addressed are: 



• How do climate, physical and chemical processes, and biological constraints interact to 



influence recruitment of invertebrates and fishes? 



• How important is the role of predation on young stages as a determinant of future 



population structure and which are the important predators? 



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