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。“洋中脊2000”（R2K）计划综合研究主题的目标是了解洋中脊系统各组成部分联系的相互依赖性，包括热液通量对上覆生物系统的影响。2003年，研究人员开展了多学科综合研究，研究深海热液喷口玄武岩的地球化学-生物相互作用、动物演替和微生物定植。在2004年至2005年期间，他们进行了导航向下的图像调查，部署了数字延时相机系统，使用水下安装和自主的原位化学传感器检查了栖息地的变化，取样了扩散流喷口栖息地中微生物和大型动物群落的化学特征，并由不同的基础物种（即厚斑裂口菌和嗜热深海菌）占据。他们还设计并进行了贻贝清除和排斥笼实验，以研究喷口流体通量和化学变化在控制生态演替中的作用。然而，正在进行的研究和已部署的实验在2005年底/ 2006年初被海底喷发破坏。通过这次喷发事件的机会，特别是喷口的开始和新的熔岩基质的殖民化，研究人员通过额外的摄影记录、不同的栖息地采样和部署综合殖民化实验，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。通过持续的多学科数据整合，他们将通过描述化学、微生物和后生动物随时间的定植在喷发前后的环境背景，充分实现他们的最初目标，并确定我们的生态观测和实验的整合和综合的相关尺度，为未来热液喷口群落动态的研究奠定基础。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国际空间站工作的地震学家和化学家协调了他们的实验设计，并将他们的综合栖息地特征、原位化学和殖民研究集中在离散的喷口场和各种正在进行和拟议的项目感兴趣的地区。更广泛地说，微生物、动物和化学相互作用的持续整合和综合将提供信息，大大提高我们对斑块和短暂环境中种群建立、发展和维持的认识，并将开始使这些联系能够在通过喷口栖息地和进入海洋的能量和质量传递模型中参数化的过程。研究目标与Ridge 2000计划的主题和当前目标非常吻合，为了使其他人能够将我们的数据集充分整合到其他综合工作中，研究人员已经发布了他们的现场数据，并将继续上传来自岸上分析的衍生数据，包括扩散流体温度和化学变化的年度报告、喷口图像和分析。并将微生物和后生动物群落特征的初步结果提交到R2K数据门户网站，并参加即将举行的R2K研讨会。所有的pi都致力于参与教育和公共宣传活动，包括指导学生和早期职业科学家。他们将继续为R2K教育和公共推广协调员提供FLEXE（从当地到极端环境）项目的课程材料（例如，综合图形和演讲），这是一个与GLOBE正式合作的创新项目，GLOBE是一个大型的、基于网络的国际科学教育项目，将学生、教师和科学家联合起来研究地球系统科学。我们提议的工作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，电影的DVD版本已经发行，并分发给美国各地的K12教育工作者。研究人员了解接触和激励更广泛的公众的必要性，并设想他们的工作成果将为已经被设计成美国课堂课程教育活动组成部分的材料提供有力的教育补充。

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.