Thomas (Zack) Powell's Home Page
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Research Interests
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 (Strub et al. 1985; Goldman
et al. 1989; Jassby et al. 1990; Jassby et al. 1992); the utilization of
remote sensing (Strub and Powell 1986, 1987); and the construction of
mathematical and numerical models (Powell and Richerson 1985; Powell 1988;
Hastings and Powell 1991; Archer et al. 1993).
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. We are also interested in the present El
Nino, so Liz Dobbins put together this animation from
GIF images available at the
International Research Institute for Climate Prediction:
Selected Publications
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 food chain.
Ecology 72:896-903.
