Predicting coastal algal blooms in southern California.

The irregular appearance of planktonic algae blooms off the coast of southern California has been a source of wonder for over a century. Although large algal blooms can have significant negative impacts on ecosystems and human health, a predictive understanding of these events has eluded science, and many have come to regard them as ultimately random phenomena. However, the highly nonlinear nature of ecological dynamics can give the appearance of randomness and stress traditional methods-such as model fitting or analysis of variance-to the point of breaking.

On estimating the reliability of ecological forecasts.

Recent work has highlighted the utility of nonparametric forecasting methods for predicting ecological time series (Perretti et al., 2013. Proc.

Predicting climate effects on Pacific sardine.

For many marine species and habitats, climate change and overfishing present a double threat. To manage marine resources effectively, it is necessary to adapt management to changes in the physical environment. Simple relationships between environmental conditions and fish abundance have long been used in both fisheries and fishery management.

Model-free forecasting outperforms the correct mechanistic model for simulated and experimental data.

Accurate predictions of species abundance remain one of the most vexing challenges in ecology. This observation is perhaps unsurprising, because population dynamics are often strongly forced and highly nonlinear. Recently, however, numerous statistical techniques have been proposed for fitting highly parameterized mechanistic models to complex time series, potentially providing the machinery necessary for generating useful predictions.

Regime shift indicators fail under noise levels commonly observed in ecological systems.

Ecological regime shifts are rapid, potentially devastating changes in ecosystem state that last for extended periods of time. Previous theoretical work has generated numerous early-warning indicators of regime shifts, some of which have been empirically demonstrated in closed ecological systems. Here we evaluated a suite of indicators using a previously studied three-species model under conditions likely to be observed in field studies of open ecological systems.