Dr Mads Thomsen1
1University Of Canterbury, School of Biological Sciences, New Zealand, 2Aarhus University, Department of Bioscience, Denmark
Co-occurring foundation species create biogenic habitats that, through facilitation cascades (FCs), can increase biodiversity. Here I combine data from meta-analyses and globally distributed surveys and experiments to test how FCs affect biodiversity and how FCs are affected by stressors and large-scale disturbances, like earthquakes and heatwaves. Along with a large group of collaborators, I show that FCs are ubiquitous in marine rocky reef ecosystems, that FCs can be as strong as trophic cascades, and that FCs can be both destroyed and enhanced by disturbances and stress. I therefore suggest that facilitation cascades, like other indirect processes such as trophic cascades, should be incorporated into theory, models, conservation and management of marine biodiversity and productivity.
Presentation Slides – Mads Thomsen
Biography:
Mads is a seaweed enthusiast with field experience from Scandinavia, North America, Australia, and New Zealand. Today, Mads has collated a large photo-library showing himself (and a few with his children) holding up seaweed of contrasting colors, sizes, and shapes. Mads has experienced first-hand cataclysmic ecological changes to marine ecosystems, including native-turn-invasive in North America, new surprise-invasions in Scandinavia, destructive earthquakes in New Zealand and unprecedented heatwaves in Australia and New Zealand. These changes fuel Mads’ passion for long-term field monitoring and experimental approaches to understand and predict why different seaweeds are where they are.
