Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs

Biologists have made significant advances in our understanding of the Earths shallow subtidal marine ecosystems, but the findings on these disparate regions have never before been documented and gathered in a single volume. Now, in Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs, Tim R. McClanahan and George M. Branch fill this lacuna with a comparative and comprehensive collection of nine essays written by experts on specific aquatic regions. Each essay focuses on the food webs of a respective ecosystem and the factors affecting these communities, from the intense and direct pressure of human influence on fisheries to the multi-vector contributors to climate change. The book covers nine shallow water marine ecosystems from selected areas throughout the world: four coral reef systems, three hard bottom systems, and two kelp systems. In summarizing their organization, human influence on them, and recent developments in these ecosystems, the authors contribute to our understanding of their ecological organization and management. Food Webs and the Dynamics of Marine Reefs will be a useful tool for all benthic marine investigators, providing an expert, comparative view of these aquatic regions.

Readership: Marine ecologists and managers of marine ecosystems and fisheries. Undergraduate and postgraduate students in these fields. Lay public interested in marine management and ecological interactions. (Upper Division or Graduate level courses in Marine Ecology, Aquatic Ecology, Conservation and Management of Marine Ecosystems).

Edited by Tim McClanahan, Conservation Ecologist and Director of Coral Reef Programs, The Wildlife Conservation Society, Mombasa, Kenya, and George M. Branch

Preface
1: Marine Food Webs: Conceptual Development of a Central Research Paradigm, Bruce Menge
2: Kelp Forest Food Webs In The Aleutian Archipelago, James A. Estes
3: Trophic Interactions in Subtidal Rocky Reefs on the West Coast of South Africa, George M. Branch
4: Subtidal Kelp-Associated Communities off the Temperate Chilean Coast, José M. Fariña, Alvaro. T. Palma and F. Patricio. Ojeda
5: Diversity and Dynamics of Californian Subtidal Kelp Forests, Michael Graham, Ben Halpern, Mark Carr
6: Biodiversity and Food-Web Structure of a Galápagos Shallow Rocky Reef Ecosystem, Rodrigo H. Bustamante, Thomas A. Okey, and Stuart Banks
7: Food Web Structure and Dynamics of East African Coral Reefs, Tim McClanahan
8: Food Web Structure and Dynamics of Eastern Tropical Pacific Coral Reefs: Panamá and Galápagos Islands, Peter W. Glynn
9: Conclusions An Ecosystem Perspective Shallow Marine Reefs, Tim McClanahan and George M. Branch