Lagrangian and Model Based Studies of the Arabian Sea

The structure of population boundaries and the biological dynamics that control the edges of major biogeographic regimes are two fundamental questions in biological oceanography with profound consequences to questions ranging from local variations in the marine ecosystem to features in the optical and acoustic properties of the ocean environment. Facing these problems also provides a unique avenue for testing our methods for investigating marine populations both in the field and in models. The role of population models in this context is to first sketch out the problem in terms of concrete, testable hypotheses and then carry through by aiding in the design of field sampling, data analysis and ultimately in a comparison between field results and model predictions. Therefore modeling in close cooperation with field and laboratory work to attack the problem of what processes set the end of a populations extent in space is the imediate goal of this effort. This effort is funded by ONR Biological Oceanography.