At a workshop on ecosystem network analysis sponsored by the international Scientific Committee on Ocean Research (SCOR), H. McKellar presented data on North Inlet which were used to examine the utility of several approaches to flow analysis that have been recently developed by various systems ecologists.
The fauna group has been experimenting with relatively new statistIcal methods to better understand patterns in their data. The base now includes more than five years of biweekly samples, with abundance counts of hundreds of species per sample (for details write Don Edwards, Dept. of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208).
Two papers have been prepared which summarize 11 years of continuous data on meiobenthic collections at 2 estuarine sites (one mud, one sand). One important finding is that there was no periodicity of greater than 1 year for any taxon, species, or physical variable measured, Seasonal and year-to-year variability was significantly greater in mud than in the sand. The mud fauna appears to be predator controlled, the sand fauna physically controlled. Apparently benthos in hydrodynamically active habitats are homogenized both temporally and spatially and biological agents increase the variability of the in situ fauna.
The major personnel changes involve the addition of Dr. Fred Sklar to the full time LTER staff replacing Dr. E. Blood who now is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health, USC, but remains active in LTER. Dr. Skiar joined us in February and will be heavily involved in landscape modeling.
Coull, B.C. 1985. Long-term variability of estuarine meiobenthos: an 11 year study. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 24:205-218.
Coull, B.C. and B.W. Dudley. 1985. Dynamics of meiobenthic copepod populations: a long-term study (1973-1983). Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 24:219-229.