U.S.-Brazil Cooperative Research: Trophic Role of Zooplankton on the Brazilian Continental Shelf

该美洲项目奖将支持美国和巴西博士之间的研究项目。康涅狄格大学的George B. McManus和Hans G. Dam，以及巴西圣克鲁斯州立大学的Rubens M. Lopes博士。该项目的目标是调查巴西大陆架浮游动物的营养作用，特别是生态系统强迫对浮游生物的生物结构和营养关系的影响。在这个项目中，将研究控制南大西洋中部水（SACW）季节性入侵巴西南部海湾大陆架的物理机制，并评估其对该地区生态系统生物过程的影响。据推测，营养丰富的SACW侵入大陆架是造成渔业产量高以及鱼类种群年复一年波动的部分原因。营养输入事件与鱼类产量之间的联系是通过微浮游动物和后生浮游动物来实现的。这项研究将填补这些浮游动物的结构和功能以及它们之间相互作用的知识空白。它将把巴西研究人员在分类学和描述生态学方面的优势与美国科学家在实验过程研究方面的优势结合起来。

This Americas Program award will support a US-Brazil research project between Drs. George B. McManus and Hans G. Dam, University of Connecticut, and Dr. Rubens M. Lopes at the State University of Santa Cruz in Brazil. The goal of the project is to investigate the trophic role of zooplankton on the Brazilian continental shelf, and in particular the effect of ecosystem forcing on biological structure and trophic relationships within the plankton.In this project the physical mechanisms that control the seasonal intrusion of the South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) onto the continental shelf of the Southern Brazilian Bight will be studied, and its impact on the biological processes of the region's ecosystem will be evaluated. It is hypothesized that intrusions of the nutrient-rich SACW onto the shelf are partly responsible for the high fisheries yield as well as for some of the year-to-year fluctuations in fish stocks. The linkages between nutrient-input events and fish production are made though micro- and metazoan zooplankton. This research will fill a gap in the knowledge of the structure and function of these zooplankton and of the interactions between them. It will combine the strengths of the Brazilian researchers in taxonomy and descriptive ecology with those of U.S. scientists in experimental process studies.