Spatial relationships between predators and prey have important implications for landscape processes and patterns. Highly mobile oceanic birds and their patchily distributed prey constitute an accessible model system for studying these relationships. High-frequency echosounders can be used together with simultaneous direct visual observations to quantitatively describe the distributions of seabird consumers and their resources over a wide range of spatial scales, yielding information which is rarely available in terrestrial systems.Recent fine-scale investigations which have used acoustics to study the distribution of foraging marine birds have reported weak or ephemeral spatial associations between the birds and their prey. These results are inconsistent with predictions of optimal foraging, but several considerations suggest that traditional foraging models do not adequately describe resource acquisition in marine environments. Relative to their terrestrial counterparts, oceanic 'landscapes' are structurally very simple, but they generally lack visual cues about resource availability.An emerging view assumes that perceptually constrained organisms searching for food in multiscale environments should respond to patterns of resource abundance over a continuum of scales. We explore fractal geometry as a possible tool for quantifying this view and for describing spatial dispersion patterns that result from foraging behavior. Data on an Alaskan seabird (least auklet [Aethiapusilla]) and its zooplanktonic food resources suggest that fractal approaches can yield new ecological insights into complex spatial patterns deriving from animal movements.

Plankton populations in Prince William Sound, Alaska, exhibited pronounced seasonal, annual and longer‐period variability in composition and standing stock in response to physically influenced differences in nutrient availability, and possibly currents that modify local biomass by exchanges with water from the bordering Gulf of Alaska. During springs in which early, strong physical stratification developed, intense, short‐lived phytoplankton blooms occurred. These blooms had relatively short residence times in the water column. In contrast, during springs in which slower, weaker stratification developed, phytoplankton blooms were prolonged and took longer to peak. These slower blooms prolonged the period of phytoplankton production, prolonged interaction with the springtime grazing community and led to the incorporation of more organic matter into pelagic food webs. A coupled biological‐physical simulation of plankton production was used to examine the implications of seasonally varying air and mixed‐layer temperatures, surface winds and incident light on the timing, duration, annual production and standing stock of plankton. Our modelling results reproduced the observed characteristics of the springtime production cycle, and the magnitude of zooplankton stocks for the period 1992–97 but not for 1981–91. These results suggest that for most of the 1990s, bottom‐up influences on nutrient supplies controlled levels of primary consumers, whereas for the 11 years before that, other unknown factors dominated this process. We present the results of a comprehensive, multiyear study of relationships between plankton and physical limitations, and a retrospective analysis of earlier conditions to explore the possible causes for these differences.

Our collaborative work focused on understanding the system of mechanisms influencing the mortality of juvenile pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Coordinated field studies, data analysis and numerical modelling projects were used to identify and explain the mechanisms and their roles in juvenile mortality. In particular, project studies addressed the identification of major fish and bird predators consuming juvenile salmon and the evaluation of three hypotheses linking these losses to (i) alternative prey for predators (prey‐switching hypothesis); (ii) salmon foraging behaviour (refuge‐dispersion hypothesis); and (iii) salmon size and growth (size‐refuge hypothesis). Two facultative planktivorous fishes, Pacific herring (Clupea pallasi) and walleye pollock (Theragra chalcogramma), probably consumed the most juvenile pink salmon each year, although other gadids were also important. Our prey‐switching hypothesis was supported by data indicating that herring and pollock switched to alternative nekton prey, including juvenile salmon, when the biomass of large copepods declined below about 0.2 g m−3. Model simulations were consistent with these findings, but simulations suggested that a June pteropod bloom also sheltered juvenile salmon from predation. Our refuge‐dispersion hypothesis was supported by data indicating a five‐fold increase in predation losses of juvenile salmon when salmon dispersed from nearshore habitats as the biomass of large copepods declined. Our size‐refuge hypothesis was supported by data indicating that size‐ and growth‐dependent vulnerabilities of salmon to predators were a function of predator and prey sizes and the timing of predation events. Our model simulations offered support for the efficacy of representing ecological processes affecting juvenile fishes as systems of coupled evolution equations representing both spatial distribution and physiological status. Simulations wherein model dimensionality was limited through construction of composite trophic groups reproduced the dominant patterns in salmon survival data. In our study, these composite trophic groups were six key zooplankton taxonomic groups, two categories of adult pelagic fishes, and from six to 12 groups for tagged hatchery‐reared juvenile salmon. Model simulations also suggested the importance of salmon density and predator size as important factors modifying the predation process.

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Five years of field, laboratory, and numerical modelling studies demonstrated ecosystem‐level mechanisms influencing the mortality of juvenile pink salmon and Pacific herring. Both species are prey for other fishes, seabirds, and marine mammals in Prince William Sound. We identified critical time‐space linkages between the juvenile stages of pink salmon and herring rearing in shallow‐water nursery areas and seasonally varying ocean state, the availability of appropriate zooplankton forage, and the kinds and numbers of predators. These relationships defined unique habitat dependencies for juveniles whose survivals were strongly linked to growth rates, energy reserves, and seasonal trophic sheltering from predators. We found that juvenile herring were subject to substantial starvation losses during a winter period of plankton diminishment, and that predation on juvenile pink salmon was closely linked to the availability of alternative prey for fish and bird predators. Our collaborative study further revealed that juvenile pink salmon and age‐0 herring exploit very different portions of the annual production cycle. Juvenile pink salmon targeted the cool‐water, early spring plankton bloom dominated by diatoms and large calanoid copepods, whereas young‐of‐the‐year juvenile herring were dependent on warmer conditions occurring later in the postbloom summer and fall when zooplankton was composed of smaller calanoids and a diversity of other taxa. The synopsis of our studies presented in this volume speaks to contemporary issues facing investigators of fish ecosystems, including juvenile fishes, and offers new insight into problems of bottom‐up and top‐down control. In aggregate, our results point to the importance of seeking mechanistic rather than correlative understandings of complex natural systems.