Using Chesapeake Bay as a study site, the proposed research will evaluate how spatial/temporal heterogeneity in physical and biological habitats interact to affect predator-prey interactions, fish growth rate and system production. Fish growth rate potential is a new concept that will be incorporated into the models for the first time. The research will develop the growth rate potential mathematically, evaluate the sensitivity and spatial statistics of fish growth rate potential relative to the underlying physical and biological structure of habitat, compare properties of spatially-explicit fish growth rate among different cohorts and species with respect to predator behavior, foraging efficiency and spatial scale of observation, and develop a dynamic spatial model that allows exchange between different segments of the model. The Chesapeake Bay will be used as a study site because of the availability of an extensive database well-suited for these analyses. The research will link biology and physics within a spatially-explicit framework and has widespread application for predicting how changes in the patterning or absolute scaling of the environment might affect production dynamics of higher trophic levels.
