One of the things that I think is interesting here is that 
even in our early attempt at some synthesis, we see some things 
starting to connect up within this ecosystem, which is causing 
an event that we're all concerned about, and that is, productiv¬ 
ity generating the primary organic material there, sinking some 
portion beneath the pycnocline and getting a nice reflection in 
the subpycnocline chlorophyll with the amount of material that 
is on its way into the deep water vis-a-vis the sediment traps 
and with some lags. This seems to be a signal, perhaps a 
mixture of both physics of the system and biology describing the 
degree of anoxia. 
So I would make a strong punch that collecting data is 
nice. Having well-designed programs is, of course, absolutely 
essential. But spending a good deal of time and recognition of 
the importance of synthesis, putting together the story, is also 
incredibly important. 
My final point concerns something that's been getting a 
little more press nowadays than what it did in the past, al¬ 
though it's certainly not unique at this point, and that is 
trying to consider within the context of a monitoring program 
not just stocks, but also the rates. To say this another way 
that we all understand, it is awfully important for us to know 
how much money we have in our wallet or bank account. That is 
very, very important and we're all concerned with it. 
Hence, it's also important in ecosystems to know how many 
characteristics are there and what sort they are and so forth. 
And we're doing a reasonable job at that to some extent. 
It's also important in economics or in our own personal 
life, and it helps us to understand how much money there is in 
our wallet or bank account if we know who is writing the checks 
and how much they're for and when they're being written. 
So what I'm suggesting is a mechanism that is available, 
lots of different examples of it, wherein within the context of 
simple, routine, mundane, boring, at times, monitoring programs 
one ought to be measuring some rates or fluxes. That is, the 
major things that are connecting these stocks and the reason for 
that is it gives us better understanding and some anticipation 
of whether the stocks are going to get bigger or smaller. 
I suggest continued monitoring of these fluxes that are 
being either directly or indirectly measured within some of the 
monitoring programs, i.e., inputs from the land of various and 
sundry sources; that's the rate, those are being measured; the 
concentrations of nutrients, of plankton, and to some extent the 
abundance of members of the food web are being measured; and of 
course stock measurements. 
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