Do fine-scale water column structure and particle aggregations favor gelatinous-dominated food webs in subtropical continental shelf environments?

细尺度水柱结构和颗粒聚集是否有利于亚热带大陆架环境中以凝胶状为主的食物网？

• 批准号: 2244690
• 负责人: Adam Greer
• 金额: $ 144.48万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-01-01 至 2026-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2244690&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Do; fine; scale; water; column

Using new ocean observing technologies in two contrasting locations, this research is combining measurements of biological and environmental conditions to understand highly productive ocean shelf food webs. Within marine food webs, a diverse community of small animals, referred to collectively as zooplankton, serve as prey for larger animals including fishes and marine mammals. Zooplankton can also influence lower trophic levels, such as marine microbes that in turn, affect nutrient and gas cycling throughout the oceans. This project is also supporting graduate and undergraduate students, including several from Savannah State University, a Historically Black University with undergraduate and graduate programs in marine sciences. The field research is providing authentic oceanographic experiences for K-12 educators, who will participate in the planned research cruises, as well as research opportunities for juniors and seniors at a local high school with high enrollment of groups underrepresented STEM. Public outreach includes annual open house events at the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.This project addresses fundamental questions in ocean sciences regarding how environmental conditions affect the structure and composition of zooplankton communities in continental shelf ecosystems. Biologically productive shelf ecosystems can oscillate between extremes of vertically mixed waters during windy and colder seasons and vertically stratified waters during warmer and calmer conditions. Warm, calm conditions favor the formation of dense layers or aggregations of plankton and particulate material, generating hot spots of biological activity that potentially allow marine organisms to feed at much higher rates than water-column-average abundances might suggest. Although physical mechanisms of layer formation and plankton groups associated with them have been described in several shelf environments, less is known about the influence of layers on zooplankton community composition and trophic transfer. For fast-reproducing pelagic tunicates such as salps, pyrosomes, appendicularians, and doliolids, these layers or aggregations may serve as rich food resources that prime pelagic tunicates to form dense blooms which then ultimately serve as food for gelatinous predators. This sequence of events, from layer formation to pelagic tunicate reproduction and predation on the bloom, may generate high abundances of gelatinous organisms throughout the marine food web. The investigators will test this hypothesis by measuring fine-scale abundances of gelatinous zooplankton with in-situ imaging, gelantinous zooplankton diets using molecular gut content analysis, and food web properties using compound-specific stable isotopes in both vertically mixed and stratified conditions. To determine if food web interactions are generalizable to water columns with and without vertical structure, these processes will be compared in the South Atlantic Bight and northern Gulf of Mexico shelf ecosystems. Both provide favorable conditions for doliolid blooms yet differ in drivers of vertical stratification. This project is co-funded by the Directorate for Geosciences to support AI/ML advancement in the geosciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项研究利用两个不同地点的新海洋观测技术，结合生物和环境条件的测量来了解高产的海洋陆架食物网，在海洋食物网中，各种小动物群落（统称为浮游动物）充当猎物。对于包括鱼类和海洋哺乳动物在内的大型动物，浮游动物也会影响较低的营养水平，例如海洋微生物，进而影响整个海洋的营养物和气体循环。萨凡纳州立大学是一所历史悠久的黑人大学，设有海洋科学本科和研究生课程。实地研究为 K-12 教育工作者提供真实的海洋学经验，他们将参加计划中的研究航行，并为大三和大四的学生提供研究机会。当地一所高中，入学人数较少的 STEM 群体人数较多，其中包括在佐治亚大学斯基德威海洋学研究所举办的年度开放日活动。该项目解决了海洋科学中有关环境条件如何影响海洋结构和组成的基本问题。大陆架生态系统中具有生物生产力的陆架生态系统可以在多风和寒冷季节的垂直混合水域和温暖和平静条件下的垂直分层水域之间振荡，有利于浮游生物和颗粒的密集层或聚集体的形成。物质，产生生物活动热点，可能使海洋生物以比水柱平均丰度更高的速度进食，尽管层形成和沉积的物理机制可能表明。与它们相关的浮游生物群已在几个陆架环境中得到描述，但对于快速繁殖的中上层被囊动物（如樽海鞘、火体动物、附肢动物和多利奥利科动物），这些层或聚集体对浮游动物群落组成和营养转移的影响知之甚少。可能是丰富的食物资源，使中上层被囊动物形成密集的花朵，然后最终成为胶状捕食者的食物，这一系列事件从层的形成开始。研究人员将通过原位成像测量凝胶状浮游动物的精细丰度、使用分子肠道的凝胶状浮游动物饮食来检验这一假设。在垂直混合和分层条件下使用化合物特异性稳定同位素进行含量分析和食物网特性，以确定食物网相互作用是否可推广到具有 和 的水柱。在没有垂直结构的情况下，将在南大西洋湾和墨西哥湾北部陆架生态系统中对这些过程进行比较，两者都为白云石华提供了有利的条件，但垂直分层的驱动因素不同。该项目由地球科学局共同资助以支持。地球科学领域人工智能/机器学习的进步。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。