PISCO: Research that Spans an Entire Large Marine Ecosystem Yields Valuable Insight

Ongoing climate change is altering Earth’s ecosystems. Standardized ecological data are collected by few large-scale networks. Such data, however, will be essential for detecting and understanding changes, forecasting the future of ecosystems, and allowing us to better prepare and adapt.  Coastal ecosystems are the interface between marine and terrestrial systems, harbor at least half of the human population, and are thus likely to be critical in understanding the impacts of climate change. To understand the functioning of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), and facilitate transfer of knowledge to policymakers and managers, in 1999 the David and Lucile Packard Foundation funded a four-institution, 13-PI ecological consortium, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO) to address six issues: (1) gain a long-term, large-scale understanding of the functioning and sustainability of coastal marine ecosystems, (2) monitor coastal ecosystems (rocky shores, kelp beds) to detect change, (3) rapidly transfer knowledge and lend expertise to management and policy efforts, and reach out to public and user groups, (4) train a new generation of interdisciplinary professionals to bridge the science/policy interface, (5) develop a user-friendly database to make PISCO data available to all, and (6) develop a structure to coordinate a distributed science and policy network. PISCO’s expertise includes ecologists, oceanographers, biomechanics, geneticists, molecular and organismal physiologists, and biogeochemists. Now in its 14^th year, PISCO has succeeded in all these aims. Biodiversity surveys in intertidal and kelp communities carried out in the CCLME and beyond provide an inventory, and the basis for determining patterns of change through time. This program has redefined the biogeography of intertidal systems along the west coast of North America. Monitoring of key processes such as recruitment, nutrients and productivity has yielded insight into linkages to climatic patterns such as El Nino, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and upwelling variation. PISCO PIs helped develop and apply theories of marine reserves, marine spatial planning and fisheries management to ecosystems of the CCLME. Discoveries include the onset of nearshore hypoxia and severe ocean acidification along the CCLME. Recently, our consortium expanded with funding from the NSF to study ecosystem impacts of ocean acidification.  One of our long-term goals is to help foster creation and maintenance of consortium approaches to ecosystem-based ocean science.