SCC Presents: Environmental Threats to Oregon's Ocean & Coastal Ecosystem

The Oregon coast is experiencing considerable change: changing climate, ocean acidification, ocean upwelling, warmer water temperatures, stronger storms, coastal flooding, and increasing beach erosion. What does this mean for the long-term health of Oregon's nearshore ocean and coastal ecosystems? Please join us to hear Dr. Bruce Menge review the ways that these two areas are changing, and how these changes can affect our fisheries and coastal natural resources. He is involved with numerous interdisciplinary studies, some mentioned in his bio below, that are explaining how these changes affect maritime and coastal productivity, including larval transport and connectivity. This involves understanding the interactive and multiple effects on the ocean of a changing global climate, along with the effects of pollution and unsustainable harvests of ocean resources. As an aside, Oregon?s new coastal Marine Reserves, established in 2012, are now hopefully starting to function as protective enclaves for our coastal fish and fauna. Bruce A. Menge is a Distinguished Professor of Zoology and the Wayne and Gladys Valley Endowed Professor of Marine Biology in the Department of Zoology at Oregon State University. He also served as Chair of the Department from 2008-2011. His major research areas are marine community and meta-ecosystem ecology, physiological ecology, and he is currently focused on the impacts of climate change, including ocean acidification, on coastal marine ecosystems. He received a BA in Zoology at the University of Minnesota in 1965 and a PhD in Zoology at the University of Washington in 1970. He is the lead Principal Investigator in the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans (PISCO), and in the Ocean Margin Ecosystem Group for Acidification Studies (OMEGAS). Professor Menge has authored or co-authored more than145 refereed research papers. He has recognition as one of the 0.5% of the most cited ecologists over the past two decades (ISI Highly Cited.com, 2002). In 2010, he was awarded the Western Society of Naturalists? Lifetime Achievement Award.