Ed Ricketts Memorial Lecture

The Ed Ricketts Memorial Lecture was created to honor people who have exhibited exemplary work throughout their career and advanced the status of knowledge in the field of marine science. The first award was presented in March of 1986 at a conference at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Recipients are selected by the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Research Activity Panel

Dr. Mary Silver
Professor of Ocean Sciences, Ocean Sciences Department,
University of California, Santa Cruz

A Local Story: Harmful Algae in Monterey Bay?

In coastal waters worldwide, accounts of harmful algal blooms are on the rise. The Monterey Bay region has long been known as hosting toxic algae (phytoplankton) that can cause human illness. Indeed, the original connection between shellfish poisoning and algal toxins resulted from shrewd detective work by physicians and marine scientists investigating a shellfish poisoning event that affected individuals from Monterey Bay to San Francisco in the late 1920s. Since then, California has achieved the record of having the longest running monitoring program for paralytic shellfish toxins, the agent of poisoning in the 20's event and one of the most dangerous marine toxins. Since 1991, however, poisoning events involving seabirds and marine mammals have pointed to the presence of previously unknown algal toxins in the Monterey Bay region. At least 3 and possibly classes of algal toxins have now been found locally. Because of the animal kills, the Monterey Bay region has become a center for research on algal toxins, not so much due to potential dangers to humans, but to the opportunity the toxins have provided local scientists to examine physiological and ecological processes that these dramatic tracers highlight. Indeed, reports of medical problems caused by algal toxins are rare in Monterey Bay, whose coastal waters are still relatively clean. Fortunately, the unusually heightened state of awareness of these toxins provides a measure of local protection not found in many other regions of the world. Research on the patterns of occurrence of toxic species, the passage of the toxins through food chains, plus the development of powerful new technologies for their detection, suggest that the Monterey Bay research community will help protect regional fisheries as well as clarify the oceanographic and biological context of a phenomenon increasingly present in coastal regions around the world.

Dr. 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.

1999 Ricketts Memorial Lecturer:

Joseph Connell
Research Professor of Biology, UC Santa Barbara

Long-Term Dynamics of Corals on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef

At Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia, over a 30 year period, the abundance and recruitment of reef-building corals varied drastically, at several scales of space and time. At five of the six study areas, the abundance of corals declined nearly to zero at some time during the study period. Recurrent hurricanes were a major cause of coral mortality. Hurricane damage varied considerably among the different study areas. At different sites, both the degree of damage caused, and the rate and maximum extent of recovery thereafter, were influenced by the history of previous damage and recovery. Recruitment of corals also varied at different spatial and temporal scales. Recruitment varied substantially among years, but years of high rates were not consistent among the different study areas. Recruitment rate increased as free space increased, at 3 of the 4 shallow sites; free space was preempted by either corals or macroalgae. The spatial scales over which coral abundance varied gave evidence of the scales at which the underlying causal mechanisms operated. An individual hurricane usually caused about the same damage to all sites within a habitat, but its effects less often extended into another habitat. The temporal scales in which coral abundance varied also differed among habitats. The time scale between a trough and the next peak in abundance is at least 20 years, probably longer, in the shallower and deeper depths, while at intermediate depths, this time scale was about 10 years.

History of Ricketts Memorial Lectures

1999
Joseph Connell	Long-Term Dynamics of Corals on Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef
1998
George Somero	Faunal Changes in Monterey Bay: Is Global Warming Starting to "Hurt"?
1997
Greg Cailliet	Below Pacific Tides: The Predictability, Diversity and Importance of Habitats for Marine Fishes
1996
Steve Webster	Ed Ricketts, Where Are You When We Need You?
1995
Dick Parrish	Sardines
1994
Wayne Sousa	Mudsnails in Space: the Metapopulation Dynamics of Cerithidea
1992
Jim Childress	Deep Stuff
1991
Walter Munk	Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate, in Gestation
1990
Gene Haderlie	Historical Perspectives on Research in Monterey Bay
1989
John Martin	Iron in the Ocean
1988
Sandy Lydon	History of Peoples of Monterey Bay
1987
Dick Barber	Recruitment of Eastern pacific by Larvae Riding El Niño Currents
1986
Joel Hedgepeth	History of Natural History Exploration Hereabouts