Long-term Ecological Research at the North Inlet Estuary

北湾河口长期生态研究

• 批准号: 9011664
• 负责人: F. John Vernberg
• 金额: $ 126.44万
• 依托单位: University of South Carolina at Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1991
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1991-01-01 至 1993-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9011664&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Long; term; Ecological; Research; North

A new emphasis on process-based interactions and feedbacks within the North Inlet ecosystem will be carried out. The coupling of ongoing long-term sampling programs will process-based experiments and transect analyses across ecological gradients is planned. Based upon good descriptions of the long-term temporal variability in ecosystem structure, project emphasis will shift toward experiments designed to explain that variation. These process-oriented studies will concentrate on areas where marsh habitats are encroaching into the coastal forest. Transects within this watershed will be sampled to monitor spatial and temporal variations in nutrients, the deposition of organic matter, plant and animal biomass, fish migrations, and water movements. Select locations along a transect will provide insights on very long-term processes such as marsh evolution. These measurements will be combined with experiments on nutrient cycling, sedimentation, decomposition, primary production, fertilization, trophic dynamics and recruitment in a coordinated effort that emphasizes exchange and transformation process. Ecosystem models at a variety of spatial and temporal scales will be developed. They will characterize and summarize the complexity of the major structural and functional habitats within North Inlet, test hypotheses, structure our field experiments, and ultimately, be incorporated into large landscape/climate models. Models will focus our attention on general systems dynamics and the chemical, physical and biological interactions which regulate system level processes. This focus will, in turn, place the North Inlet LTER project in a strong position to evaluate the impacts of disturbance events (e.g., hurricanes), global climate change and regional land-use change on system processes at various scales. Key long-term datasets will be extended into a second decade. This continuity with the past provides the measurements of long- term variations in the estuarine structure, the indices by which change is observed. Statistical analyses of the short-term variability in these long-term data sets have shown that certain environmentally controlled parameters, such as chlorophyll concentrations or seasonal fish migrations, are reasonably predictable, while other more biological controlled parameters, such as the zooplankton abundance or recruitment success of benthos, were unpredictable and likely to vary greatly within and between seasons.

新的重点将放在北湾生态系统内基于过程的互动和反馈上。正在进行的长期采样计划的耦合将基于过程的实验和跨生态梯度的样带分析。基于对生态系统结构长期时间变化的良好描述，项目重点将转向旨在解释这种变化的实验。这些以过程为导向的研究将集中在沼泽生境侵入沿海森林的地区。将对该流域内的样带进行采样，以监测营养物质、有机物沉积、植物和动物生物量、鱼类洄游和水运动的时空变化。沿着样带选择的地点将提供对沼泽演变等长期过程的见解。这些测量将与营养循环、沉积、分解、初级生产、施肥、营养动力学和补充试验相结合，协调一致地强调交换和转化过程。将开发不同时空尺度的生态系统模型。他们将描述和总结北湾主要结构和功能栖息地的复杂性，测试假设，构建我们的实地实验，并最终纳入大型景观/气候模型。模型将把我们的注意力集中在一般系统动力学和化学、物理和生物相互作用上，这些相互作用调节着系统水平的过程。反过来，这一重点将使北入口LTER项目处于有利地位，以评估扰动事件（如飓风）、全球气候变化和区域土地利用变化对不同尺度系统过程的影响。关键的长期数据集将扩展到第二个十年。这种与过去的连续性提供了对河口结构长期变化的测量，这是观察变化的指标。对这些长期数据集的短期变异性的统计分析表明，某些环境控制的参数，如叶绿素浓度或季节性鱼类洄游，是可以合理预测的，而其他更受生物控制的参数，如浮游动物的丰度或底栖动物的补充成功，是不可预测的，可能在季节内和季节之间变化很大。