Collaborative Research: Integrating Geological, Chemical, and Biological Processes: Implications for Ecological Succession on the East Pacific Rise

该奖项是根据2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助的。海脊2000(R2K)计划的综合研究主题的目标是了解大洋中脊系统各组成部分联系的相互依存关系，包括热液流动对上覆生物系统的影响。2003年，研究人员启动了多学科综合研究，以调查深海热液喷口玄武岩的地球化学-生物相互作用、动物群演替和微生物定居。2004至2005年间，他们进行了导航俯视图像调查，部署了数字延时相机系统，利用潜水式和自主的现场化学传感器检查了生境的变异性，对扩散流喷口生境中的微生物和大型动物群落进行了采样，这些生境具有不同的基础物种(即厚里夫氏藻和嗜热圆线虫)的化学特征和占据。他们还设计并进行了贻贝清除和排泄笼实验，以研究喷口流体通量和化学在控制生态演替中的变异性。然而，正在进行的研究和已部署的实验在2005年底/2006年初被海底喷发(S)破坏。通过这次喷发事件的机会，特别是开始喷发和新鲜的熔岩基质进行定居，调查人员继续研究流体化学、微生物群落和大型动物之间的基本联系和相互作用，方法是补充摄影资料、对不同的栖息地进行采样和部署综合的定居实验。通过持续的多学科数据整合，他们将充分实现最初的目标，确定喷发前和喷发后随时间推移的化学、微生物和后生动物殖民的环境背景，另外的目标是确定整合和综合我们的生态观测和实验的相关尺度，以便今后调查热液喷口的群落动态。为了最大限度地积极互动和整合我们的多学科数据，他们与在R2K EPR ISS工作的地震学家和化学家协调了他们的实验设计，并将他们关于离散喷口领域和感兴趣区域的综合栖息地特征、原位化学和殖民研究集中到各种正在进行的和拟议的计划中。更广泛地说，微生物、动物群和化学相互作用的持续整合和合成将提供信息，极大地提高我们关于斑块和短暂环境中种群的建立、发展和维持的知识，并将开始使这些联系在能量和质量传输模型中通过喷口生境进入海洋的过程。研究目标与Ridge 2000计划的主题和当前目标非常吻合，并使其他人能够在其他综合工作中完全整合我们的数据集，研究人员已经公布了他们的现场数据，并将继续上载从岸上分析得出的数据，包括扩散流体温度和化学变化的年度报告，将EVENT图像和分析以及微生物和后生动物群落特征的初步结果发送到R2K数据门户网站，并参加即将举行的R2K讲习班。所有私人投资机构都致力于参与教育和公共宣传活动，包括指导学生和职业生涯早期的科学家。他们将继续为R2K教育和公共外联协调员提供FLEX(从局部环境到极端环境)计划的课程材料(例如，综合图形和演讲演示)，该计划是与GLOBE正式合作的创新计划，GLOBE是一个大型、基于网络的国际科学教育计划，将学生、教师和科学家联合起来学习地球系统科学。我们拟议努力的另一个组成部分将是支持与IMAX电影《深海火山》有关的正式和非正式教育和外联活动。在接下来的几年里，这部电影将在世界各地的许多IMAX影院上映，该片的DVD版本已经发行并分发给美国各地的K12教育工作者。调查人员了解接触和激发更广泛公众的必要性，并设想他们的工作成果将为已经被设计为全美课堂课程中不可或缺的教育活动的材料提供强有力的教育补充。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The goal of the Integrated Studies theme of the Ridge 2000 (R2K) Program is to understand the interdependence of component linkages of the mid-ocean ridge system, including the impact of hydrothermal fluid flux on the overlying biological system. In 2003, the investigators initiated integrated multidisciplinary studies to investigate the geochemical-biological interactions, faunal succession, and microbial colonization of basalt at deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Between 2004 and 2005, they conducted navigated down-looking image surveys, deployed digital time-lapse camera systems, examined habitat variability using submersible-mounted and autonomous in-situ chemical sensors, sampled microbial and macrofaunal communities in diffuse-flow vent habitats chemically characterized and occupied by different foundation species (i.e., Riftia pachyptila and Bathymodiolus thermophilus). They also designed and conducted mussel-clearance and exclusion-cage experiments to investigate the variability of vent fluid flux and chemistry in controlling ecological succession. However, on-going studies and deployed experiments were destroyed by seafloor eruption(s) in late 2005/early 2006. Through the opportunity of this eruptive event, in particular the initiation of venting and fresh lava substrates for colonization, the investigators continued their studies of the fundamental linkages and interaction of fluid chemistry, microbial communities, and macrofauna through additional photographic documentation, diverse habitat sampling, and deployment of a integrated colonization experiment. Through continued multi-disciplinary data integration, they will fully achieve their initial goals by characterizing the pre- and post-eruption environmental context of chemical, microbial and metazoan colonization over time, with the additional goal of identifying the relevant scales of integration and synthesis of our ecological observations and experiments for future investigations of community dynamics at hydrothermal vents. To maximize active interaction and integration of our multi-disciplinary data, they have coordinated their experimental design with seismologists and chemists working at the R2K EPR ISS and have focused their integrated habitat characterization, in situ chemistry, and colonization studies on discrete vent fields and regions of interest to various on-going and proposed programs. More broadly, the continued integration and synthesis of microbial, faunal, and chemical interactions will provide information that significantly advances our knowledge on the establishment, development, and maintenance of populations in patchy and ephemeral environments and will begin the process of enabling these linkages to be parameterized in models of energy and mass transfer through vent habitats and into the ocean.The research objectives fit well with the themes and current goals of the Ridge 2000 Program, and to enable others to fully integrate our datasets in other synthesis efforts, the investigators have posted their field data and will continue to upload derived data from shore-based analyses, including annual reports of diffuse fluid temperature and chemical variations, vent imagery and analysis, and preliminary results of the characterization of microbial and metazoan communities to the R2K Data Portal and participate in upcoming R2K workshops. All of the PIs are committed to involvement in educational and public outreach activities, including the mentorship of students and early-career scientists. They will continue to provide the R2K Education and Public Outreach coordinator with curriculum materials (e.g., integrative graphics and lecture presentations) for the FLEXE (From Local to EXtreme Environments) program, an innovative program formally partnered with GLOBE, a large-scale, web-based, international science education program that joins students, teachers and scientists in studying earth systems science. An additional component of our proposed effort will be supporting formal and informal education and outreach activities associated with the IMAX film Volcanoes of the Deep Sea. Over the coming years, the film will be playing at numerous IMAX theaters throughout the world and a DVD version of the film has been released and disseminated to K12 educators across the United States. The investigators understand the necessity of reaching and exciting the broader public, and envision that the results of their work will provide a powerful educational supplement to materials already designed to be an integral part of educational activities to classroom curricula throughout the United States.