Maya Greenhill
Ecosystem stability and resilience: quantifying positive feedback loops
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Project Proposal:
Marine ecosystems often experience abrupt community changes in response to environmental disturbances. Due to increasing climate temperatures and anthropogenic activity, these changes are being documented at unprecedented rates and are of increasing concern to the scientific community. Working under researcher and collaborator Evie Wieters from the Catholic Pontifical University of Chile, I propose to research how the interactions that cause positive feedback loops, mechanisms that provide stability and resilience to marine communities, break down across spatial distance. I will focus on the quantification of the positive feedbacks that maintain dominant habitat-forming coastal marine species across three systems: the corals and macroalgal turfs of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the kelp forests in central Chile.
Chile’s diverse marine ecosystems and history of excellent marine science, coupled with my previous research experience in South America and a pre-existing relationship with my advisor, make Chile the ideal location to conduct this study. Unpredictable climate events pose one of the largest global threats to ocean ecosystem health. This project addresses an important information gap in anticipating whether ecosystems will recover after environmental disturbances and in understanding the processes that degrade marine ecosystems.
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Proposal:
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