Collaborative Research; Prolonged Production and Trophic Transfer to Predators: Processes at the Inner Front of the Southeastern Bering Sea

HUNT，乔治L.加州大学欧文分校，该项目旨在验证以下假设：在白令海的内锋面，初级产量的上升比非锋面水域的上层混合层持续时间更长，并且这种产量在整个夏季为支持海鸥，鲑鱼及其浮游动物猎物的食物网提供能量来源。为了验证这一假设，拟议的合作研究将收集和解释对内锋附近的物理和生物特征的观察结果，以确定光带中营养物质的可用性，负责增强营养物质垂直通量的物理过程，初级生产，近地表群的分布，丰度和营养生态，分布，丰度和其他浮游动物。和海鸥的觅食生态，以及稳定的同位素富集从浮游植物到海鸥的营养途径在前线和远离前线。这项研究非常重要，因为它将是对开花后初级生产的内部前沿物理过程的第一次检查，重点关注这种扩展生产的生态作用，并将海鸟的跨区域迁徙模式的进化与创造可预测猎物来源的生物物理过程联系起来。

ABSTRACT OPP-9617287 HUNT, GEORGE L. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE This project is designed to test the hypothesis that elevated primary production at the inner front continues longer than in the upper mixed layer of non-frontal waters in the Bering Sea, and that this production provides an energy source throughout the summer for a food web that supports shearwaters, salmon, and their zooplankton prey. To test this hypothesis, the proposed collaborative research will collect and interpret observations on physical and biological features in the vicinity of the inner front to determine the availability of nutrients in the euphotic zone, the physical processes responsible for enhanced vertical flux of nutrients, primary production, the distribution, abundance and trophic ecology of near-surface swarms of euphausiids and other zooplankton, the distribution, abundance, and foraging ecology of shearwaters, and by stable isotope enrichment in trophic pathways from phytoplankton to shearwaters at and away from the front. The proposed research is important because it will be the first examination of the physical processes of the inner front in post-bloom primary production, focus on the ecological role of this extended production, and relate the evolution of transequatorial migration patterns of seabirds to biophysical processes that create predictable sources of prey.