Marine Metapopulations

Technological improvements have greatly increased the ability of marine scientists to collect and analyze data over large spatial scales, and the resultant insights attainable from interpreting those data vastly increase understanding of poplation dynamics, evolution and biogeography. Marine Metapopulations provides a synthesis of existing information and understanding, and frames the most important future directions and issues.

• First book to systematically apply metapopulation theory directly to marine systems
• Contributions from leading international ecologists and fisheries biologists
• Perspectives on a broad array of marine organisms and ecosystems, from coastal estuaries to shallow reefs to deep-sea hydrothermal vents
• Critical science for improved management of marine resources
• Paves the way for future research on large-scale spatial ecology of marine systems

Marine researchers, natural resource managers, marine and terrestrial ecologists, and graduate students

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1: The Merging of Metapopulation Theory and Marine Ecology: Establishing the Historical Context

Part II: Fishes

Chapter 2: The Metapopulation Ecology of Coral Reef Fishes

Chapter 3: Temperate Rocky Reef Fishes

Chapter 4: Estuarine and Diadromous Fish Metapopulations

Part III: Invertebrates

Chapter 5: Metapopulation Dynamics of Hard Corals

Chapter 6: Population and Spatial Structure of Two Common Temperate Reef Herbivores: Abalone and Sea Urchins

Chapter 7: Rocky Intertidal Invertebrates: The Potential for Metapopulations within and among Shores

Chapter 8: Metapopulation Dynamics of Coastal Decapods

Chapter 9: A Metapopulation Approach to Interpreting Diversity at Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents

Part IV: Plants and Algae

Chapter 10: A Metapopulation Perspective on the Patch Dynamics of Giant Kelp in Southern California

Chapter 11: Seagrasses and the Metapopulation Concept: Developing a Regional Approach to the Study of Extinction, Colonization, and Dispersal

Part V: Perspectives

Chapter 12: Conservation Dynamics of Marine Metapopulations with Dispersing Larvae

Chapter 13: Genetic Approaches to Understanding Marine Metapopulation Dynamics

Chapter 14: Metapopulation Dynamics and Community Ecology of Marine Systems

Chapter 15: Metapopulation Ecology and Marine Conservation

Chapter 16: The Future of Metapopulation Science in Marine Ecology