Diagnostic Indicators of Biological Community: An Experimental Test in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica

底栖无脊椎动物群落被广泛用于监测和评估海洋环境污染的生物影响，因为它们的生活方式、寿命、功能多样性、众所周知的分类和生态意义使其成为一个理想的生态模板，可以在其上烙印生物后果。底栖生物群落已成功地用于环境评估，以令人信服地证明污染的影响在大型动物无脊椎动物的科和门水平上很容易检测到。这种在高分类水平上检测污染影响的能力似乎是不同分类群以相反的方式对两类底栖生物群落（有机负荷和毒性）作出反应的结果。该项目旨在验证这样一种假设，即大型动物和/或小型动物的单个门的丰度和产量指数可以作为独立的诊断工具，以区分这两种不同类型的海洋污染的典型混淆影响。pi将检验这样一种假设，即环节动物蠕虫和线虫在适度的有机负荷下得到增强，节肢动物和棘皮动物在适度接触有毒污染物（微量金属）时优先受到抑制。第一个假设将在麦克默多站附近进行测试，因为1)其相对稳定的环境允许实验工作在海底进行，而不会受到混杂干扰的影响；2)以往的底栖生物研究表明，沉积物污染与底栖生物群落退化存在明显的混淆模式；在寒冷的极地海洋中，自然生物修复率很低，因此研究污染对高纬度地区的影响尤为重要。第一个目标将是在麦克默多站附近建立一个实地实验，在那里他们将操纵定殖盘中沉积物中的有机负荷和痕量元1浓度，以便通过析因设计（允许测试因素之间的相互作用）来测试不同的分类群是否对不同的污染类别作出独立的反应。治疗还将包括获得较大的移动捕食者和群落发展的时间，以便评估生态系统内的生物相互作用是否具有污染压力指数的诊断能力。其次，pi将完成对污染对海洋无脊椎动物群落影响的所有可用数据集的严格审查和荟萃分析，以使用来自监测排放，石油泄漏和先前实验的大量预先存在的信息来验证假设。结果有很大的潜力，可以建立社区压力的诊断指标，用于区分海洋污染的混杂原因，并指导麦克默多站的适当管理反应

ABSTRACT OPP-96-15849 Communities of benthic invertebrates are widely used to monitor and evaluate biological impacts of pollution in the marine environment because their sessile life styles, longevity, functional diversity, well-known taxonomy and ecological significance render this system an ideal ecological template on which biological consequences are imprinted. Benthic communities have been used successfully in environmental assessments for convincing demonstrations that impacts of pollution are readily detectable at the level of family and phylum for macrofaunal invertebrates. This ability to detect pollution impacts at high taxonomic levels appears to be a consequence of different taxa responding to two classes of benthic communities, organic loading and toxicity, in opposite ways. This project is designed to test the hypothesis that indices of abundance and production for individual phyla of macrofauna and/or meiofauna can be used as independent diagnostics to tease apart the typically confounded impacts of these two separate classes of marine pollution. The PIs will test the hypothesis that annelid worms and nematodes are enhanced by modest organic loading and that arthropods and echinoderms are depressed preferentially by modest exposure to toxic contaminants (trace metals). The first hypothesis will be tested near McMurdo Station because of 1) its relatively constant environment allows experimental work to proceed on the seafloor without compromise by confounding disturbances; 2) previous benthic studies at this site have revealed significant confounded patterns of sediment contamination and benthic community degradation; and 3) low rates of natural bioremediation in cold polar oceans make study of pollution impacts especially critical at high latitudes. The first objective will be to establish a field experiment near McMurdo Station where they will manipulate organic loading and trace meta l concentration in sediments within colonization trays so as to test by factorial design (permitting tests of interactions between factors) whether the separate taxa respond independently to the classes of pollution. Treatments will also include access of larger mobile predators and time for community development so as to assess whether biological interactions within the ecosystem with the diagnostic capability of the indices of pollution stress. Second, the PIs will complete a rigorous review and meta-analysis of all available data sets on effects of pollution on marine invertebrate communities to test the hypothesis using the wealth of pre-existing information from monitoring discharges, oil spills, and previous experimentation. Results have great potential to allow the establishment of diagnostic indicators of community stress that can be used to separate confounded causes of causes of marine pollution and direct appropriate management responses at McMurdo Station