Ed Ricketts Memorial Lecture
Paul K. Dayton
Professor, Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Long-Term Changes in Kelp Forests and Their Assemblages
This lecture will discuss the importance of long-term data with examples from southern California kelp forests and the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program. In addition, once there are long-term data over large areas, it is possible to expand the synthesis with satellites. So, with good time series data one can vary the scales of interest and develop a more comprehensive understanding of the systems in question. Some such data are available in the Monterey area, but considering the highdensity of marine biologists and the keen public interest, one might have expected more baseline studies. While many are now underway, an argument can be made for a larger CalCOFI analog with several transects across the shelf. Remote stations and buoys can offer important physical insights, but it takes a real shipboard program to collect the biological samples so necessary to our future understanding of these large scale patterns.