RUI: Ice Scour Disturbance and the Structure of Arctic Bottom Communities

9321504奥利弗冰川冲刷是对极地水域海底群落最具破坏性和最广泛的物理干扰。在高纬度地区，冰压脊将海底冲刷到60米深，而更大的冰山则深达400米。该项目将探索这种干扰对北极底栖动物种群和群落的生态影响。这是一个多学科的加拿大-美国联合项目，涉及两个主要部分。一是利用高分辨率侧扫声纳对研究区域进行重复测绘，对三年期间的物理扰动状况进行描述和模拟，并量化潜水员的冲刷恢复过程。这种方法将使我们能够识别每个季节新形成的冲刷，并产生关于干扰覆盖、频率、强度和物理恢复的定量和生态相关数据。第二部分是调查底栖动物种群和群落对冰川冲刷的反应，记录生物恢复的演替阶段。他们将测试观察到的广泛的地带化模式以及更大的时空社区马赛克是否与这一关键干扰相关。这种物理和生物相结合的方法将使他们能够建立冲刷老化和恢复的概念模型，并评估这种干扰对底栖动物生产和多样性的影响。***

9321504 Oliver Ice scouring is the most disruptive and widespread physical disturbance to marine bottom communities in polar waters. At high latitudes, ice pressure ridges scour the sea floor to depths of 60m, and larger ice bergs ground as deep as 400m. This project will explore the ecological implications of this disturbance to arctic benthic populations and communities. It is a multi-disciplinary and joint Canadian-U.S. Program involving two major components. The first is to characterize and model the physical disturbance regime over a three-year period by repetitive mapping the study areas with high resolution side-scan sonar, and to quantify the scour recovery process by divers. This approach will enable us to identify newly formed scours each season, and to generate quantitative and ecologically relevant data on disturbance coverage, frequency, intensity, and physical recovery. The second component is to investigate benthic population and community responses to ice scour, documenting the successional stages of biotic recovery. They will test whether observed widespread patterns of zonation and larger spatial and temporal community mosaics are correlated to this key disturbance. This combined physical and biotic approach will enable them to develop a conceptual model of scour aging and recovery, and to evaluate the impact of this disturbance on benthic production and diversity. ***