Ecosystem responses to changing time scales of environmental variability in climate change

The effect of predicted changes in time scales of basin scale indicators of environmental variability on temporal variability in component populations of marine ecosystems will depend on whether variability is in survival rates or individual growth rates.  Variability in growth rates tends to make populations sensitive to time scales near a generation time, while variability in survival tends to make populations most sensitive to longer time scales.  Because variability in growth tends to be due to bottom up effects and variability in survival tends to be due to top down effects the predicted changes in time scales of environmental  variability will effect ecosystem dynamics.  We describe how these changes occur, as well as shifts in equilibrium levels of component populations, might occur.