A framework for studying ecological energy in the contemporary marine environment

Abstract

Historic limitations have resulted in marine ecological studies usually overlooking some well-established concepts from behavioural ecology. This is likely because the methods available were easily overwhelmed by the scale of ecological processes and sampling resolution in the marine environment. Innovations in technology, data management, and statistical modelling now provide the capacity to fully embrace behavioural ecology concepts and study marine ecological interactions from a more holistic perspective. To facilitate this vision, we propose a novel perspective and workflow for marine ecology: the Seascape of Ecological Energy, or SEE-scapes. SEE-scapes contextualizes the accumulated knowledge from marine biology and behavioural ecology research and provides a guide for marine scientists interested in grounding their research in behavioural ecology's first principles. SEE-scapes specifies relevant considerations for contemporary seascapes, with special attention to relationships between individuals and their conspecifics, competitors, predators, and the abiotic environment. It is formulated to account for how the unique features of marine vertebrates require revisions to standard, terrestrially focused methodological approaches, and offers solutions for how to sample and model the eco-evolutionary drivers of behaviour across the dynamic and hierarchical seascape. Simply put, SEE-scapes provides the guidance to translate a dynamic system and reveal opportunities for collaborative and integrative research.