[LTER-sbc_all] Fwd: [seminars] PhD Seminar Announcement - Christie Yorke

[Jenny Dugan]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <lauren.baker at lifesci.ucsb.edu>
Date: Wed, Jan 23, 2019 at 11:31 AM
Subject: [seminars] PhD Seminar Announcement - Christie Yorke
To: igpms-all / mgpbusiness <igpms-all at lifesci.ucsb.edu>, Seminars <
seminars at lifesci.ucsb.edu>


Hi all,

Please come support Christie York for her exit seminar on *Thursday, 1/31 @
10 a.m. in the MSI Auditorium. *

*Christie Yorke*

Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science



*Kelp as a trophic resource to reef food webs*



*Thursday, January 31st at 10:00 AM*

MSI Auditorium



*Committee members:* Robert Miller, Mark Brzezinski, Mark Page, Douglas
McCauley



*Abstract:*

Primary productivity fundamentally structures ecosystem complexity and
function. Most primary productivity is not consumed directly, but ends up
as detritus. Primary production of kelps and other marine macrophytes is no
exception, and giant kelp produces large amounts of detritus that is
exported out of the kelp forest.  Some kelp detritus may be recycled into
kelp forest food webs, but its fate and importance to reef consumers has
been difficult to track. I sought to address how giant kelp detritus may
contribute to kelp forest food webs. To assess the commonly proposed
hypothesis that live kelp shed small particles that comprise a major
component of suspension feeder diets, I directly quantified and
characterized kelp detritus shed from living kelp and assessed the
importance of living kelp versus phytoplankton on suspension feeder growth.
I also examined a novel pathway in which sea urchins act as “shredders”
that mediate detrital kelp availability to benthic consumers. I found no
support for the hypothesis that live kelp lamina provide trophic support
for to suspension feeders. Sea urchins, however, made kelp detritus
available to a suite of benthic consumers.  The diverse and abundant
benthic macrofaunal community, rather than suspension feeders, may be
primary beneficiaries of kelp detritus, and sea urchins open up this
trophic pathway.



-- 
*Jenny Dugan*
Marine Science Institute
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6150
Phone: 805-893-2675
email: j_dugan at lifesci.ucsb.edu
http://msi.ucsb.edu/people/research-scientists/jenny-dugan
SBC LTER:  http://sbc.lternet.edu/index.html
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