Antarctic Pack Ice Seals: Ecological Interactions with Prey and the Environment

南极浮冰海豹：与猎物和环境的生态相互作用

• 批准号: 9816594
• 负责人: Kendra Daly
• 金额: $ 7.74万
• 依托单位: University of Tennessee Knoxville
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-04-15 至 2001-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9816594&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Antarctic; Pack; Ice; Seals; Ecological

9816594HALLAMThe pack ice region surrounding Antarctica contains at least fifty percent of the world's population of seals, comprising about eighty percent of the world's total pinniped biomass. As a group, these seals are among the dominant top predators in Southern Ocean ecosystems, and the fluctuation in their abundance, growth patterns, life histories, and behavior provide a potential source of information about environmental variability integrated over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This proposal was developed as part of the international Antarctic Pack Ice Seals (APIS) program, which is aimed to better understand the ecological relationships between the distribution of pack ice seals and their environment. During January-February, 2000, a research cruise through the pack ice zone of the eastern Ross Sea and western Amundsen Sea will be conducted to survey and sample along six transects perpendicular to the continental shelf. Each of these transects will pass through five environmental sampling strata: continental shelf zone, Antarctic slope front, pelagic zone, the ice edge front, and the open water outside the pack ice zone. All zones but open water will be ice-covered to some degree. Surveys along each transect will gather data on bathymetry, hydrography, sea ice dynamics and characteristics, phytoplankton and ice algae stocks, prey species (e.g., fish, cephalopods and euphausiids), and seal distribution, abundance and diet. This physical and trophic approach to investigating ecological interactions among pack ice seals, prey and the physical environment will allow the interdisciplinary research team to test the hypothesis that there are measurable physical and biological features in the Southern Ocean that result in area of high biological activity by upper trophic level predators. Better insight into the interplay among pack ice seals and biological and physical features of Antarctic marine ecosystems will allow for a better prediction of fluctuation in seal population in the context of environmental change.

南极洲周围的厚厚的冰层地区至少有世界50%的海豹种群，约占世界羽足生物量的80%。作为一个群体，这些海豹是南大洋生态系统中最主要的顶级捕食者之一，它们的丰度、生长模式、生活史和行为的波动提供了一个潜在的信息来源，可以在广泛的空间和时间尺度上综合环境变异性。这项建议是作为国际南极包冰海豹(APIs)计划的一部分制定的，该计划旨在更好地了解包冰海豹的分布与其环境之间的生态关系。在2000年1月至2月期间，将进行一次穿越罗斯海东部和阿蒙森海西部浮冰地带的研究巡航，沿垂直于大陆架的六个横断面进行调查和采样。每条断面都将通过五个环境采样层：大陆架带、南极斜坡前缘、远洋带、冰缘前缘和浮冰带外的开阔水域。除开阔水域外，所有区域都将在一定程度上被冰覆盖。沿每个样带的调查将收集有关水深测量、水文地理学、海冰动态和特征、浮游植物和冰藻种群、猎物种类(例如鱼、头足类和真甲虫)以及海豹分布、丰度和食物的数据。这种调查海豹、猎物和物理环境之间生态相互作用的物理和营养方法将使跨学科研究小组能够检验这样一种假设，即南大洋存在可测量的物理和生物特征，导致上层营养层捕食者的区域具有高生物活性。更好地了解群冰海豹与南极海洋生态系统的生物和物理特征之间的相互作用，将有助于更好地预测在环境变化背景下海豹种群的波动。