Description

The Zostera Experimental Network (ZEN) is a global partnership of marine scientists collaborating to quantify the interacting influences of environmental forcing, biodiversity, and food-web perturbations on structure and functioning of eelgrass (Zostera marina) beds, the foundation of important but threatened coastal ecosystems worldwide. Primary support comes from US National Science Foundation grant OCE-1336206 to Emmett Duffy, Kevin Hovel and Jay Stachowicz, with essential in-kind support provided by the ZEN partners and institutions. Current ZEN research has four main objectives:

1. Quantify linkages between eelgrass genetic diversity, growth, and provision of animal habitat

2. Quantify the influence of eelgrass habitat structure on consumer-prey interactions, secondary production, and trophic transfer

3. Identify mechanisms for the influence of grazer diversity on algal control

4. Develop a global map of grazing and predation intensity to assess the relative importance of bottom-up and top-down forcing in eelgrass beds

Recent Publications

Duffy, J. E., P. L. Reynolds, C. Boström, J. A. Coyer, M. Cusson, S. Donadi, J. G. Douglass, J. S. Eklöf, A. H. Engelen, B. K. ERIKSSON, S. Fredriksen, L. Gamfeldt, C. Gustafsson, G. Hoarau, M. Hori, K. Hovel, K. Iken, J. S. Lefcheck, P.-O. Moksnes, M. Nakaoka, M. I. O'connor, J. L. Olsen, J. P. Richardson, J. L. Ruesink, E. E. Sotka, J. Thormar, M. A. Whalen, and J. J. Stachowicz. 2015. Biodiversity mediates top-down control in eelgrass ecosystems: a global comparative-experimental approach. Ecology Letters 18:696–705. (PDF)

Reynolds, P. L., J. Paul Richardson, and J. Emmett Duffy. 2014. Field experimental evidence that grazers mediate transition between microalgal and seagrass dominance. Limnology and Oceanography 59:1053–1064. (PDF)

Duffy, J. E., P.-O. Moksnes, and A. R. Hughes. 2013. Ecology of Seagrass Communities. Pages 271–297 in M. D. Bertness, J. F. Bruno, B. R. Silliman, and J. J. Stachowicz, editors. Marine Community Ecology and Conservation. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachusetts. (link)

Poore, A. G. B., A. H. Campbell, R. A. Coleman, G. J. Edgar, V. Jormalainen, P. L. Reynolds, E. E. Sotka, J. J. Stachowicz, R. B. Taylor, M. A. Vanderklift, and J. E. Duffy. 2012. Global patterns in the impact of marine herbivores on benthic primary producers. Ecology Letters 15:912–922. (PDF)