“All Animals Weren’t Created Equal”

Robert T. Paine

Jenessa KayApril 23, 2013Community Ecology

Nature Education, 2012

Biographical Info Born in Cambridge, MA – April 13,1933

Happy belated birthday! AB - Harvard University, 1954 Army Battalion Gardener PhD - University of Michigan, 1961 Post-doc, Scripps Institute of Oceanography Professor of Zoology, University of Washington

1962 – 1998 Current Professor emeritus of Zoology, UW

Kinne (ed.), 1994

Awards and Recognition

1979-80 – President of Ecological Society of America

1983 – MacArthur Award (ESA) 1989 – Excellence in Ecology Prize

(Ecology Inst. in Oldendorf am Luhe, Germany

1997 – Sewall Wright Award (Society of American Naturalists)

2000 – Eminent Ecologist Award

Scientific American, 2010

Cited by 3652

Cited by 1178

BioScience, Vol. 46, No. 8 (Sep., 1996)Cited by 1017

Cited by 920

Cited by 776

Research Overview

Predation Hypothesis and Competitive Hierarchies

Food Web Interactions and Trophic Cascades

Quantifying interaction strengths and patch dynamics

Keystone Species Concept

marinebio.net

Why don’t we have monocultures of good competitors??

The New York Times, 2012

Kevin Schafer

Study Location Makah Bay – mainland WA Tatoosh Island - 0.5 miles

offshore from Cape Flattery Part of Makah Reservation Longest ongoing study of a

single area by the same scientist in the U.S.makah.com

Superstock.com

Tatoosh Island

history.noaa.gov (1943)

wikimedia.com

legendsofamerica.com

“Whether I was stupid or foolhardy, I spent my first ten years in the intertidal in sneakers – cheap as possible.”

scientificamerican.com

“I have too good peripheral circulation.”

The New York Times, 2012

“His intellectual presence is so commanding that his physical presence hardly registers.”

naturalhistoriesproject.org

“If you ask him a question…you feel the weight of an encyclopedic knowledge of scientific and natural history gathering behind his response.”

naturalhistoriesproject.org

“What would happen if we removed the top predator from an ecosystem?”

naturalhistoriesproject.org

“You get pretty good at throwing starfish into deeper water.”

Nature, 2010

California Academy of Sciences

asnailodyessy.com

“I’ve always thought of myself as a wader due to my size.”

Kick-It-And-See Ecology Changed ecology from an

observational to an experimental science

3 years on Makah Bay 8 x 2 m plots Removal of Pisaster ochraceus Unmanipulated control Transect lines to measure density

of resident macroinvertebrates and benthic algae

Bruno, 2007 ppt

scientificamerican.com

What Maintains Diversity?

Previously, thought diversity = ecosystem stability “Stability increases as the number

of links increase” (MacArthur, 1955)

“A rich fauna and flora…tends to be very stable because of multiplicity of ecological checks and balances” (Watt, 1964)

Paine – absence of one individual can shift entire population into monoculture Species richness decreased from

15 to 8

online.santarosa.edu

Nature Education, 2010

Paine, 1966

3 Pages That Changed the World (of Ecology)

Loss can initiate trophic cascades: the rise and fall of connected species throughout the food web

Type of Keystones

Predators – Sea Otters, Gray Wolves Prey Mutualists – hummingbirds Hosts – Saguaro cactus Parasites Modifiers – N. American Beaver Pollinators Where does it end?

Challenges include context dependency and diversity dictating keystone status

1994 – United Nations’ Global Biodiversity Assessment met to identify issues and challenges with keystone species concept

9 “keystone cops” including Paine, Tilman, Mary Power, Bruce Menge

Written as discussion between “Dr. Knowitall,” “Empiricist” and “Skeptic”

A keystone species is one that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance, size or biomass

Goodness gracious, it’s Pisaster ochraceus

Drawing from 1999 Paul Dayton Jane Lubchenco Bruce Menge Steve Palumbi

Marian Kohn, 1999 (Nature, 2013)

Paine = a Keystone

The New York Times, 2012

Questions?

sfbbo.org

ReferencesMills, L. Scott, Michael E. Soule, and Daniel F. Doak. "The keystone-species concept in ecology and

conservation." BioScience 43.4 (1993): 219-224. Levin, Simon A., and Robert T. Paine. "Disturbance, patch formation, and community

structure." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 71.7 (1974): 2744-2747. Paine, Robert T. "Food web complexity and species diversity." American Naturalist (1966): 65-75. Paine, Robert T. "A note on trophic complexity and community stability." The American Naturalist 103.929

(1969): 91-93. Paine, Robert T. "Food webs: linkage, interaction strength and community infrastructure." Journal of

Animal Ecology 49.3 (1980): 667-685. Paine, Robert T. "A conversation on refining the concept of keystone species."Conservation Biology 9.4 (1995): 962- 964. Paine, Robert T., et al. "Trouble on oiled waters: lessons from the Exxon Valdez oil spill." Annual Review

of Ecology and Systematics (1996): 197-235. Power, Mary E., et al. "Challenges in the quest for keystones." BioScience46.8 (1996): 609-620.