REGIONAL COASTAL RESEARCH - WHAT IS IT - WHY DO IT - WHAT ROLE SHOULDNAML, PLAY

Regional coastal (i.e., marine and Great Lakes) research is an increas ingly popular, but still ill-defined, activity. The purpose of regiona l research and monitoring is to help us understand how events and proc esses at higher levels of organization, over larger spaces and longer times, influence local ecosystems of interest or concern. Research at this scale will require us to work in larger multidisciplinary and mul ti-institutional teams than we traditionally have. A survey of papers published in Estuaries, Continental Shelf Research, and Deep Sea Resea rch confirms the impression that estuarine studies are more commonly c arried out by one or two investigators, and that those investigators a re commonly from a single institution, However, the most important cha llenge facing coastal ecologists as they embark on larger-scale resear ch lies, not in increasing collaboration, but in their traditional app roach to science. We marine ecologists too often indulge in elaborate post hoc explanations for the behavior of the complex systems we study , rather than focusing on the development and testing of falsifiable e mpirical theories. Moreover, we tend to describe our research prioriti es and accomplishments using fuzzy terms and concepts that seldom have clear operational definitions, As a result, we are in danger of losin g the confidence and support of the public and the science funding age ncies. It will not do to embark on regional research by simply trying to measure more things in more places more often. The coastal marine r esearch community, perhaps through the National Association of Marine Laboratories (NAML), must reexamine the way it has been doing research . We will have to do smarter science if we are going to prosper in a f uture of diminished resources.