Contact Information
Institute of Marine ScienceP.O. Box 486
Choteau, MT 59422
Phone: (406) 466-5155
windsong@montana.com
Ted Cooney Professor Emeritus
Research Overview
My research interests continue to focus on ways that interacting biological and physical factors influence the production and transfer of organic matter through complex pelagic food webs. In this regard, I seek to work with others designing and implementing multi-component studies that attempt to successfully model marine ecosystems with sufficient accuracy to provide information for sustaining resources of high ecological and commercial value in Alaska waters.
I am convinced that acknowledging the difficulty of the “ecosystem problem” in the planning stages of study, and refraining from the usual theoretical simplifications (time, space and linearity) will ultimately provide understandings useful to a broad spectrum of resource managers and stakeholders.
The work is difficult because marine systems at high latitudes are subject to extreme seasonality, multi-year shifts in composition and production, and now appear to be reacting to accelerating climate change. To understand ecosystem-level shifts in these systems will almost certainly require a dedication to “long-term” study that is presently unappreciated by many funding sources. To be successful, the paradigm of 3-5 year programs will eventually have to give way to decadal-scale work that acknowledges the reality of Nature and commits to efforts with elevated probabilities of success.
Marine studies in Alaska supported by the North Pacific Research Board, and the Oil Spill Recovery Institute hold promise in this regard. By pushing beyond correlation in future studies to descriptions of mechanisms forcing change (defining cause and effect), the work will produce results that support much improved numerical analyses and system simulations.