Food Web Ecology Lab: January 2010

Aquatic Food Web Ecology Lab, Dalhousie University

Research in the Aquatic Food Web Ecology Lab based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, focuses on the consequences of biodiversity loss to the functioning and stability of aquatic food webs. All of our work is done in a food web context, which means that its not just the numbers of species that we are interested in, but also the structure of the food webs in which those species are embedded. Most of our work is done in aquatic microcosms, small container ecosystems in which we can assemble food webs and then subject them to various types of disturbance regimes . We also use mathematical models to run "in silico" experiments, otherwise known as computer simulations, to study problems that are too complex or just not possible to conduct in natural systems.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Mediterranean Is Scary Laboratory of Ocean Futures

Press In Wired Science

“It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going to happen elsewhere, but the principles can be extrapolated,” said Marta Call, a Dalhousie University marine biologist who has modeled the interactions of Mediterranean species. In a paper published last year in Ecosystems, she and her colleagues described Mediterranean food webs as “in an advanced state of degradation.”

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/mediterranean-degradation/#ixzz0cLBT4twl

“Structural Degradation in Mediterranean Sea Food Webs: Testing Ecological Hypotheses Using Stochastic and Mass-Balance Modelling.” By Marta Coll, Heike K. Lotze, and Tamara N. Romanuk. Ecosystems, Vol. 11 No. 6, Sept. 2008.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Mather Carscallen Joins the FWL

Mather Carscallen has been working with us for nearly three years now and this January formally joins us as an M.Sc student. He is working on polar food webs and the potential consequences of climate change on food web structure in the Arctic and Antarctic. Welcome Mather!