Thomas M. Powell

Professor Emeritus

Email: zackp@berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-7455
Lab Webpage: http://www-powelllab.biol.berkeley.edu/index.html

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Research Description

I have worked for more than twenty-five years on physical and biological processes in lakes, estuaries, and the ocean. All have been directed toward the question: How do physical processes, like mixing and turbulence, currents and circulation, or mass and energy transfer at the surface, affect the biological processes in planktonic ecosystems? Most of my investigations addressed this question directly with field measurements. In addition, with approaches that do not involve data collection directly, I am also studying (or have recently studied): the impact of climate, the utilization of remote sensing, and the construction of mathematical and numerical models.

Computer models of zooplankton in the California Current System, including the larval stages of fish and benthic invertebrates, are a present focus of studies in my laboratory.

Selected Publications

Edwards, C.A., T.M. Powell, and H.P. Batchelder. 2000. The stability of an NPZ model subject to realistic levels of vertical mixing. J. Marine Research 58:37-60.

Edwards, C.A., H.P. Batchelder, and T.M. Powell. 2000. Modeling microzooplankton and macrozooplankton dynamics within a coastal upwelling system. J. Plankton Research 22(9):1619-1648.

Hofmann, E.E., and T.M. Powell. 1998. Environmental variability effects on marine fisheries: four case histories. Ecological Applications 8(1) suppl.:S23-S32.

Powell, T.M., and J. Steele, eds. 1995. Ecological Time Series. New York: Chapman-Hall.

Koehl, M.A.R., T.M. Powell, and G. Dairiki. 1993. Measuring the fate of patches in the water: larval dispersal. In Patch Dynamics. ed. J. Steele, T. M. Powell, and S. A. Levin, 50-60. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Archer, D.A., S. Emerson, T. Powell, and C.S. Wong. 1993.Numerical prediction of pCO2 at the sea surface at weather ship station Papa. Prog. Oceanogr. 32:319-51.

Hastings, A., and T. Powell. 1991. Chaos in a three-species foodchain. Ecology 72:896-903.