Concepts in Biological Oceanography

This textbook for advanced level courses in oceanography focuses on the interaction of ecological and physical processes that govern the ocean and is designed to introduce and develop concepts. The book begins with an introduction to ecology, using foraging theory and analytic formulation of encounter rates of predator and prey as organizing principles. Examples used are primarily marine to convey how marine systems differ from terrestrial environments. These differences, which carry through the remainder of the book, arise primarily through the ways in which deposit feeders process seafloor muds, suspension feeders extract particles from seawater, bacteria absorb solutes, and marine plants gather nutrients and light. The next section of the book is devoted to central issues of biological oceanography and the final part treats interdisciplinary topics as the arena in which the non-biological environmental scientist is most likely to find need for some biological background.