in abundances of commercially important fisfies (e.g., sardine/anchovy), based on ocean and 

 climate parameters, would have great economic and social benefits for fisheries harvests and 

 management. It is important to know the sequence and temporal-spatial scales of events that 

 lead to failures or successes in recruitment in order to make predictions about the long-term 

 changes of population structure. 



A Recruitment Processes and Ecosystems Dynamics program will require funding for studies in 

 both coastal and oceanic ecosystems and the use of mesocosms for controlled experiments to 

 examine factors that influence recruitment. Initial research will focus on larval stages of fishes 

 and benthic invertebrates. As in other biological oceanography initiatives, strong input from 

 physical oceanographers will be required to allow collaborative investigation of factors that 

 aggregate or disperse larvae, their predators.and their prey. The role of predation and its 

 effects on the recuitment process will be a particularly important topic for investigation. 



As in the other subinitiatives, there is a critical requirement to develop new samplers, 

 instrumentation, and analytical techniques, and to train technical personnel. The control of 

 ecosystem structure through recruitment processes in the coastal and continental shelf and slope 

 environments is particularly important, because this is where the bulk of the harvestable 

 biomass resides. Among the obviously important controls on recruitment processes are the 

 physical, chemical, and sediment transport considerations embodied in the Coastal Ocean 

 Dynamics and Fluxes subinitiative. 



Core program funds up to $4M are already being spent in this area. We should expect to expend 

 at least $2-4.5M per year in the FY 1 989-90 time frame increasing to $1 0.5M per year by FY 

 1 993, in order to make really significant contributions to planned international programs on 

 recruitment problems and ocean ecosystems dynamics. 



5. The Land/Sea Interface. Traditionally, terrestrial, freshwater, and ocean research have 

 been separated both at academic institutions and at federal agencies. Nevertheless, their 

 geographic interconnection, especially in large terrestrial drainage systems and their estuaries, 

 offers a unique opportunity for NSF to provide leadership and catalyze integration at a critical 

 juncture. These transitional ecosystems contribute enormously to the livelihood and well-being 

 of the global human population, which itself endangers their health. 



Environments at the land/sea interface continually change because of natural variability of 

 climate and runoff and because of their sensitivity to small changes in sea level and to storms. 

 Recently, the change has been accelerated as these environments have been subjected to 

 human-caused increases in the amounts of freshwater, sediments, and nonnatural (and often 

 toxic) materials moving from the land to the oceans. Populations of organisms have also been 

 greatly changed in recent years because of habitat alterations and intense harvesting. In the next 

 century, the predicted greenhouse effect may cause global climate changes resulting in changes 

 in river runoff and temperature. 



We need to begin to plan a long term research program to monitor and document changes and to 

 specify the studies that will enable us to predict the effects of these changes on aquatic 

 ecosystems at the land/sea interface. We expect that $1 M increasing to $6M will need to be 

 allocated to OCE efforts between FY 1989-93 (with an equal amount being provided by BSR) and 

 maintained at that level through 1996. 



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