Alan Springer

Alan Springer

Professor Emeritus

Biological Oceanography
Marine Mammals
Seabirds


Institute of Marine Science
204 Arctic Health Research Bldg.
Fairbanks, AK 99775
907-474-6213
907-474-7204
amspringer@alaska.edu

 
Publications

Ruggerone GT, Springer AM, van Vliet GB, Connors B, Irvine JR, Shaul LD, Sloat MR, Atlas WI (2023) From diatoms to killer whales: impacts of pink salmon on North Pacific ecosystems. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 719:1-40.

Maniscalco JM, Springer AM, Counihan K, Hollmen T, Aderman HM, Toyukak M (2020) Contemporary diets of walruses in Bristol Bay, Alaska suggest temporal variability in benthic community structure. PeerJ 8:e8735 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8735

Ruggerone GT, Springer AM, Shaul LD, van Vliet GB (2019) Unprecedented biennial pattern of birth and death in an endangered apex predator, the southern resident killer whale, in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Mar Ecol Prog Ser 608:291-296.

Springer AM, van Vliet GB, Bool N, Crowley M, Fullagar P, Lea M-A, Monash R, Price C, Vertigan C, Woehler EJ (2018) Transhemispheric ecosystem disservices of pink salmon in a Pacific Ocean macrosystem. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 115:E5038−E5045.

Wang SW, Springer AM, Budge SM, Horstmann-Dehn L, Quakenbush LT, Wooller MJ (2016) Carbon sources and trophic relationships of ice seals during recent environmental shifts in the Bering Sea. Ecol. Appl. 26(3):830-845.

Springer AM, van Vliet GB (2014) Climate change, pink salmon, and the nexus between bottom-up and top-down forcing in the subarctic Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea. Proc Natl Acad Sci 111 (18);E1880-E1888, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319089111

Springer AM, van Vliet GB, Piatt JF, Danner EM (2006) Whales and whaling in the North Pacific: oceanographic insights and ecosystem impacts. Pp. 245-261 in Estes JA, Brownell RI, DeMaster DP, Doak DF, Williams TM (eds.), Whales, whaling, and ocean ecosystems, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Springer AM, Estes JAA, van Vliet GB, Williams TM, Doak DF, Danner EM, Forney KA, Pfister B. (2003) Sequential megafaunal collapse in the North Pacific Ocean: an ongoing legacy of industrial whaling? Proc Natl Acad Sci 100:12223-12228.

Specialties

  • pelagic production regimes
  • food webs
  • sea bird ecology

 

Research Overview

My research focuses on food web structure and on the causes and consequences of variability in production at various trophic levels, with an emphasis on marine birds and mammals.