Abstract: Climate change research is an interdisciplinary field and understanding its social, political and environmental implications requires integration across fields of research where different tools may be used to address common concerns [Baerwald, 2010]. However, current academic training promotes specialization, which may hinder our ability to parse interactions between different scales of organization, limiting our ability to extrapolate to the multiple levels of organization critical for climate change research. A useful but underutilized solution to tackle this obstacle is to facilitate collaboration between scientists with different specializations [Root and Schneider, 2006]. This is particularly important for early career scientists where integration across subfields may influence the focus of research programs as they are established and will encourage a tradition of broad-scale interactions. One of the many advantages of interdisciplinary approaches is that it opens communication between complementary fields, filling knowledge gaps, and facilitating progression both within individual fields, and the broader field of climate change research [Ludwig et al., 2011]. Despite the clear benefit of interdisciplinary approaches [e.g. Williams et al. 2008], collaborations among scientists from the natural and social sciences are still relatively uncommon [Ceballos et al., 2010].

Abstract: Decades of place-based, long-term ecological research have generated important insights into patterns and processes among ecosystems. Here, we extend a theoretical framework based on Odum's "strategy of ecosystem development"-which predicted distinct attributes of developing and mature ecosystems-in the context of more recent theoretical advancements that predict how long-term changes in the presses (long-term, gradual changes) and pulses (abrupt changes) of drivers that regulate ecosystem functions (press-pulse regimes) can influence their trajectories of development. Our modifications to ecosystem development theories (a) illustrate how press-pulse regimes can cause ecosystems to continue to develop or oscillate around a stable state (pulsed stability) or cause them to decline if the press-pulse regime changes faster than species and communities can adapt, (b) use examples from long-term ecological research of how attributes interact to affect development, and (c) suggest how revised and new theoretical frameworks can integrate long-term ecological research and observatory networks.

Abstract: Sandy beaches, a necessary habitat for nesting sea turtles, are increasingly under threat as they become squeezed between human infrastructure and shorelines that are changing as a result of rising sea levels. Forecasting where shifting sandy beaches will be obstructed and how that directly impacts coastal nesting species is necessary for successful conservation and management. Predicting changes to coastal nesting areas is difficult because of a lack of consensus on the physical attributes used by females in nesting site choice. In this study, we leveraged long-term data sets of nesting localities for two sea turtle species, loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta, and green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas, within four barrier island National Seashores in the southeastern United States to predict future nesting beach area based on where these species currently nest in relation to mean high water. We predicted the future location of nesting areas based on a sea level rise scenario for 2100 and quantified how impervious surfaces will inhibit future beach movement, which will impact both the total available nesting area and the percentage of nesting area predicted to flood following a hurricane-related storm surge. Contrary to our expectations, those barrier islands with the greatest levels of human infrastructure were not projected to experience the greatest percentage of sea turtle nesting area loss due to sea level rise or storm surge events. Notably, loss of nesting beach areas will not have equal impacts across the four Seashores; the Seashore projected to have the least amount of total nesting area lost and percentage nesting area lost currently has the highest nesting densities of our two study species, suggesting that even low levels of beach loss could have substantial impacts on future nesting densities and disproportionate impacts on the population growth of these species. Our novel method of estimating current and future nesting beach area can be broadly applied to studies requiring a bounded area that encompasses the part of a beach used by nesting coastal species and will be useful in comparing future global nesting densities and population trajectories under projected future sea level rise and storm surge activity.

Abstract: Historical ecological datasets from a coastal marine community of crustose coralline algae (CCA) enabled the documentation of ecological changes in this community over 30 years in the Northeast Pacific. Data on competitive interactions obtained from field surveys showed concordance between the 1980s and 2013, yet also revealed a reduction in how strongly species interact. Here, we extend these empirical findings with a cellular automaton model to forecast ecological dynamics. Our model suggests the emergence of a new dominant competitor in a global change scenario, with a reduced role of herbivory pressure, or trophic control, in regulating competition among CCA. Ocean acidification, due to its energetic demands, may now instead play this role in mediating competitive interactions and thereby promote species diversity within this guild.

Abstract: Mangrove forests are highly-productive intertidal wetlands that support many ecosystem goods and services. In addition to providing fish and wildlife habitat, mangrove forests improve water quality, provide seafood, reduce coastal erosion, supply forest products, support coastal food webs, minimize flooding impacts, and support high rates of carbon sequestration. Despite their tremendous societal value, mangrove forests are threatened by many aspects of global change. Here, we examine the effects of global change on mangrove forests along the Gulf of Mexico coast, which is a valuable region for advancing understanding of global change impacts because the region spans multiple ecologically-relevant abiotic gradients that are representative of other mangrove transition zones across the world. We consider the historical and anticipated future responses of mangrove forests to the following aspects of global change: temperature change, precipitation change, accelerated sea-level rise, tropical cyclone intensification, elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, eutrophication, invasive non-native species, and land use change. For each global change factor, we provide an initial global perspective but focus primarily on the three countries that border the Gulf of Mexico: United States, Mexico, and Cuba. The interactive effects of global change can have large ecological consequences, and we provide examples that highlight their importance. While some interactions between global change drivers can lead to mangrove mortality and loss, others can lead to mangrove expansion at the expense of other ecosystems. Finally, we discuss strategies for using restoration and conservation to maximize the adaptive capacity of mangrove forests to global change. To ensure that the ecosystem goods and services provided by mangrove forests continue to be available for future generations, there is a pressing need to better protect, manage, and restore mangrove forests as well as the adjacent ecosystems that provide opportunities for adaptation in response to global change.