Dissertation Research: Terrestrial subsidies to aquatic food webs: new insights from hydrogen isotopes

食物网既可以由生态系统内产生的有机物质支持，也可以由其他地方产生的有机物质支持。例如，在许多湖泊中，陆地碎屑的输入大大促进了可利用的有机物质。最近的研究量化了这些陆地补贴被纳入食物网的程度。然而，这些研究仅限于极少数湖泊，因此很难了解补贴的规模、驱动因素或重要性的变化。本研究试图通过测试一种新兴的量化陆地对水生消费者补贴的新方法来克服这些限制，并在一系列湖泊中应用这种方法。研究人员将结合实验室实验、现场实验和比较现场调查，以完善氢稳定同位素方法，并为跨生态系统补贴提供新的见解。由于生态系统管理包含景观尺度，跨生态系统流量的测量在环境评估中具有更大的重要性。该项目将提供跨生态系统流量的新测量方法，同时开发一种强大的测量陆水补贴的新方法。

Food webs can be supported both by organic matter produced within an ecosystem and by organic matter produced elsewhere. In many lakes, for instance, inputs of terrestrial detritus substantially contribute to available organic matter. Recent research has quantified the extent to which these terrestrial subsidies are incorporated into the food web. However, these studies have been limited to very few lakes, making it difficult to understand the magnitude or drivers or variation in the importance of subsidies. This study seeks to overcome these limitations by testing an emerging new approach for quantifying terrestrial subsidies to aquatic consumers, and applying this approach across a suite of lakes. The investigators will combine laboratory experiments, field experiments, and comparative field surveys in order to refine the hydrogen stable isotope approach and provide new insights into cross-ecosystem subsidies.As ecosystem management embraces landscape scales, measurements of cross-ecosystem flows assume greater importance in environmental assessments. This project will provide new measurements of cross-ecosystem flows while developing a powerful new method for measuring terrestrial-aquatic subsidies.