We thank several scientists from Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE) for historical record information and Sonia Sánchez and Luis O. Duarte for discussions of an earlier version of this paper. Special thanks are extended to “Gordie” Swartzman (University of Washington) for his valuable comments and help in finishing this work during his visit to IMARPE. Monthly in situ SST data were contributed by the “Dirección de Hidrografia y Navegacion (DHN)” of the Peruvian Navy. Participation in the 3rd International Zooplankton Production Symposium, 20–23 May 2003, Gijón, Spain, was made possible with financial aid from Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologı́a del Perú (CONCYTEC) and the Eastern Pacific Consortium for Research on Global Change in Coastal and Oceanic Systems (EPCOR). Finally, we recognize the very helpful comments of the two referees.

Support for the conference, the special issue and this paper came from the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the Instituto del Mar del Perú (IMARPE), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the North Pacific Marine Science Organization (PICES), the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) program, the Integrated Marine Biogeochemistry and Ecosystem Research (IMBER) program, the European network of excellence EUR-OCEAN, the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES, France), the Peruvian Consejo Nacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Tecnológica (CONCYTEC), the French Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (MAE), the French Embassy in Peru, and the Alliance Française of Lima, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, USA), and the David and Lucile Packard ...