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Dr. BRUCE A. MENGEWayne and Gladys Valley Professor of Marine Biology
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Research Interests
- structure and organization of marine benthic communities
- population, community, and geographical ecology
- linking benthic and nearshore pelagic communities
- the relationship between scale and community dynamics
- models of community regulation
- bottom-up and top-down control of community structure
- rocky intertidal eco-oceanography
- suborganismal mechanisms in environmental stress models
- biotic interactions
- marine ecology
Current Research Projects
Our current research is focussed on "scaling-up" from the smaller, more traditional spatial and temporal scales addressed in community ecology to larger, longer scales more relevant to the dynamics of communities and ecosystems. Our goal is to understand, at a range of scales from local to global, how nearshore ecosystems work.We are involved in two major projects. The first is aimed at understanding the dynamics of the nearshore benthic ecosystems along the US West coast, with a particular goal of understanding benthic-pelagic coupling and how this generates variation among communities along the shore. This large scale, long-term project is supported by a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. This generous support has fostered PISCO, the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (see http://piscoweb.org), a Long-term Ecological Consortium. Member institutions include Oregon State University, the Universities of Calfornia at Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz, and Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station. The consortium undertakes coordinated research in community ecology, nearshore oceanography, larval ecology, molecular biology, genetics, and ecological physiology in an integrated and interdisciplinary study of the dynamics of rocky intertidal and subtidal assemblages. Our approach is a nested, hierarchical one that employs the comparative experimental approach. We carry out identical observations and experiments at many sites, with sites nested within and between local (scale of 10's of km), regional (100's of km) and coastal (1000's of km) on the coasts of Oregon, Washington and California. OSU's geographic responsibility in this project is the coast of Oregon and northern California.
Specific aspects of the research program include studies of recruitment, population performance of critical species, and species interactions in rocky intertidal regions; studies of physical and biological processes in the waters of the inner shelf (shore to about 3 km offshore, 0 to 30 meters water depth); and surveys of community structure along the entire US west coast. Much of our current effort is focused on understanding larval transport, dispersal and survival, and in addition to PISCO participants, includes important collaborations with colleagues in OSU's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Santa Clara, University of California, Santa Barbara, Princeton University, the University of California at Davis, and Harvard University (see Recent Representative Publications for examples of publications leading to, and stemming from these activities).
The second project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and is aimed at developing an understanding of the dynamics of benthic communities in upwelling ecosystems. Mellon funds support a loosely coordinated Marine Ecosystem Dynamics consortium that includes Jane Lubchenco and me at OSU, Steve Gaines at UCSB, Simon Levin at Princeton University, Sergio Navarrete and Juan Carlos Castilla at Universidad Catolica in Santiago, Chile, and Dave Schiel at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. The goals and approaches of the members of this consortium are similar to those of PISCO. We aim to determine the roles of larval and particulate transport in structuring benthic communities located within and between coastal areas influenced by upwelling and non-upwelling conditions.
In addition to these overarching research programs, I have a long-standing and continuing interest in key conceptual issues in community ecology, including keystone species, indirect effects, interaction strength and interaction webs, and models of community regulation. Another major current focus involves testing the mechanistic basis of both environmental stressand nutrient/productivity models of community regulation using phyiological, biochemical and molecular indicators of stress and performance such as citrate synthase, LDH, RNA:DNA ratios, heat-shock proteins, and ubiquitin. This work is collaborative, involving George Somero of Stanford University, Elizabeth Dahlhoff of Santa Clara University, and Gretchen Hofmannof University of California, Santa Barbara.
Recent Representative Publications
1. 2008. Broitman, B., C. Blanchette, B. A. Menge, J. Lubchenco, P. A. Raimondi, C. Krenz, M. Foley, D. Lohse and S. D. Gaines. Spatial and temporal patterns of recruitment of intertidal invertebrates along the U.S. West coast. Ecological Monographs (in press).
2. 2008. Wieters, E., S. D. Gaines, S. A. Navarrete, C. A. Blanchette, and B. A. Menge. Scales of dispersal and the biogeography of marine predator-prey interactions. American Naturalist (in press).
3. 2008. Navarrete, S. A., B. R. Broitman, and B. A. Menge. Interhemispheric comparison of recruitment to rocky intertidal communities: pattern persistence and scales of variation. Ecology (in press).
4. 2008. Menge, B. A. Marine food webs: conceptual development of a central research paradigm. Pp. xx-xx in T. R. McClanahan and G. M. Branch, eds. Food webs and the dynamics of marine benthic ecosystems: a global overview. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, UK. (in press).
5. 2008. Chan, F., J. A. Barth, J. Lubchenco, A. Kirincich, H. Weeks, W. T. Peterson and B. A. Menge. Novel emergence of anoxia in the California Current System. Science (in press)
6. 2008. Menge, B. A., F. Chan, and J. Lubchenco. Response of a community dominant to climate patterns in rocky intertidal ecosystems. Ecology Letters 11: (in press).
7. 2007. Sanford, E. D. and B. A. Menge. Reproductive output and consistency of source populations in the sea star Pisaster ochraceus. Marine Ecology Progress Series 349:1-12.
8. 2007. Petes, L., B. A. Menge, and G. Murphy. Intertidal stress decreases survival, growth, and reproduction in New Zealand mussels. J. Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 351: 83-9.
9. 2007. Freidenburg, T. L., B. A. Menge, P. Halpin, M. A. Webster, and A. Sutton-Grier. Cross-scale variation in top-down and bottom-up control of algal abundance. J. Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 347: 8-29.
10. 2007. Menge, B. A., B. A. Daley, E. D. Sanford, E. Dahlhoff, and J. Lubchenco. Mussel zonation in New Zealand: towards an integrative eco-physiological approach. Marine Ecology Progress Series 345:129-140 .
11. 2007. Barth, J. A., B. A. Menge, J. Lubchenco, F. Chan, J. M. Bane, A. R. Kirincich, M. A. McManus, K. J. Nielsen, S. D. Pierce, and L. Washburn. Delayed upwelling alters nearshore coastal ocean ecosystems in the northern California Current. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 104: 3719-3724.
12. 2007. Webster, M., J. Osborne-Gowey, T. Young, T. Freidenburg, and B. A. Menge. Persistent regional variation in populations of a tidepool fish. J. Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 346: 8-20.
13. 2006. Helmuth, B., B. Broitman, C. A. Blanchette, S. Gilman, P. Halpin, C. D. G. Harley, M. O’Donnell, G. E. Hofmann, B. A. Menge and D. Strickland. Mosaic patterns of thermal stress in the Northeastern Pacific rocky intertidal zone: implications for climate change. Ecol. Monogr.76:461-479.
14. 2006. Schoch, G. C., B. A. Menge, G. W. Allison, M. Kavanaugh, and S. Wood. Fifteen degrees of separation: latitudinal gradients of rocky intertidal biota along the California Current. Limnology and Oceanography 51: 2564-2585.
15. 2006. Russell, R., S. A. Wood, G. W. Allison, and B. A. Menge. Scale, environment, and trophic status: The context-dependence of community saturation in rocky intertidal communities. American Naturalist 164:E158-E170.
16. 2006. Nielsen, K.J., C. A. Blanchette, B. A. Menge, and J. Lubchenco. Physiological snapshots reflect ecological performance of the sea palm, Postelsia palmaeformis (Phaeophyceae) across intertidal elevation and exposure gradients. J. Phycology 42:548-559.
17. 2005. Kirincich, A. R., J. A. Barth, B. A. Grantham, J. Lubchenco and B. A. Menge. Wind-driven inner-shelf circulation off central Oregon during summer. Journal of Geophysical Research 110: C10S03, doi:10.1029/2004JC002611, 2005.
19. 2005. Leslie, H. M., E. Breck, F. Chan, J. Lubchenco and B. A. Menge. Hotspots of barnacle reproduction associated with nearshore ocean conditions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 102: 10534-10539.
20. 2005. Menge, B. A., G. W. Allison, C. A. Blanchette, T. M. Farrell, A. M. Olson, T. Turner, and P. van Tamelen. Stasis or kinesis? Hidden dynamics of a rocky intertidal macrophyte mosaic revealed by a spatially-explicit approach. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 314:3-39. (Invited, as first Monograph in Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology).
21. 2004. Halpin, P. M., B. A. Menge and G. E. Hofmann. Experimental demonstration of plasticity in the heat-shock response of the intertidal mussel Mytilus californianus (Conrad). Marine Ecology Progress Series 276:137-145.
22. 2004. Menge, B. A., C. Blanchette, P. Raimondi, S. Gaines, J. Lubchenco, D. Lohse, G. Hudson, M. Foley, and J. Pamplin. Species interaction strength: testing model predictions along an upwelling gradient. Ecological Monographs 74:663-684.
23. 2004. Grantham, B. A., F. T. Chan, K. J. Nielsen, D. Fox, J. Barth, A. Huyer, J. Lubchenco, and B. A. Menge. Upwelling-driven nearshore hypoxia signals ecosystem and oceanographic changes in the northeast Pacific. Nature 429:749-754.
24. 2004. Menge, B. A. Bottom-up:top-down determination of rocky intertidal shorescape dynamics. Pages 62-81 In G. A. Polis, M. E. Power, and G. Huxel, eds. Food webs at the landscape level. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL.
25. 2003. Menge, B. A., M. Bracken, M. Foley, T. Freidenburg, G. Hudson, C. Krenz, H. Leslie, J. Lubchenco, R. Russell, and S. D. Gaines. Coastal oceanography sets the pace of rocky intertidal community dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 100: 12229-12234.
26. 2003. Guichard, F., G.W. Allison, P. Halpin, J. Lubchenco, B. Menge. Mussel disturbance dynamics: Signatures of oceanographic forcing from local interactions. American Naturalist 161: 889-904.
27. 2003. Menge, B. A. The overriding importance of environmental context in determining the consequences of species deletion experiments. Pp. 16-43 in S. A. Levin, P. Kareiva, editors. The Importance of Species: Perspectives on Expendability and Triage. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
28. 2002. Dahlhoff, E. P., J. Stillman, and B. A. Menge. Physiological community ecology: variation in metabolic activity of ecologically important rocky intertidal invertebrates along environmental gradients. Integrative and Comparative Biology 42:862-871.
29. 2002. Halpin, P. M., C. Sorte, G. E. Hofmann, and B. A. Menge. Patterns of variation in levels of Hsp 70 in natural rocky shore populations from microscales to mesoscales. Integrative and Comparative Biology 42:815-824.
30. 2002. Menge, B. A., A. M. Olson, and E. Dahlhoff. Environmental stress, bottom-up effects, and community dynamics: integrating molecular-physiological with ecological approaches. Integrative and Comparative Biology 42:892-908.
31. 2002. Menge, B. A., E. Sanford, B. A. Daley, T. L. Freidenburg, G. Hudson, and J. Lubchenco. An interhemispheric comparison of bottom-up effects on community structure: insights revealed using the comparative-experimental approach. Ecological Research 17: 1-16.
32. 2001. Dahlhoff, E. P., B. B. Buckley, and B. A. Menge. Physiology of the rocky intertidal predator Nucella ostrina along an environmental stress gradient. Ecology 82: 2816-2829.
33. 2001. Connolly, S. R., B. A. Menge, and J. Roughgarden. A latitudinal gradient in recruitment of intertidal invertebrates in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Ecology 82: 1799-1813.
34. 2001. Menge, B. A. and T. L. Freidenburg. Keystone species. Pp. 613-631 in Encyclopedia of Biodivers ity, S. A. Levin, editor-in-chief. Academic Press, New York, NY.
35. 2001. Sanford, E. and B. A. Menge. Spatial and temporal variation in barnacle growth in a coastal upwelling system. Marine Ecology Progress Series 209: 143-157.
36. 2001. Menge, B. A. and G. M. Branch. Rocky intertidal communities. Pp. 221-251 in Marine Community Ecology, edited by M. D. Bertness, S. D. Gaines, and M. Hay. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA.
37. 2000. Menge, B. A. Top-down and bottom-up regulation of marine rocky intertidal communities. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 250:257-289.
38. 2000. Navarrete, S. A., B. A. Menge, and B. A Daley. Species interactions in a rocky intertidal food web: prey or predation regulation of intermediate predators? Ecology 81:2264-2277.
39. 2000. Menge, B. A. Recruitment vs. post-recruitment processes as determinants of barnacle population abundance on Oregon rocky shores. Ecological Monographs 70:265-288.
40. 1999. Menge, B. A., B. A. Daley, J. Lubchenco, E. Sanford, E. Dahlhoff, P. M. Halpin, G. Hudson, and J. Burnaford. Top-down and bottom-up regulation of New Zealand rocky intertidal communities. Ecological Monographs 69: 297-330.
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