Collaborative Research: Changes in Arctic Sea Ice and their Impact on Timing of Life History and Production of Zooplankton

非技术性本项目将展示气候引起的北极物理系统变化对初级生产量和单一重要的桡足类物种的影响。该物种是理解北极系统的物理和生物过程之间的相互作用的模型，以及气候变化引起的事件的时间和顺序的变化如何影响该物种的成败。这一结果可以外推到其他生物和群体，这些生物和群体同样依赖于季节性周期和物理和生物环境中事件的时间安排，以更好地预测气候变化下该生态系统的变化。该项目将向K-12学生介绍气候变化可能影响北极生态系统的方式。通过该项目开发的教育活动和课程将广泛提供，该团队计划每年赞助一名本科生参加学生奖学金计划，以从事与这项工作相关的研究项目。一名博士后研究人员将参与建模，该团队将通过会议向科学界传播其结果，并通过社交媒体和在线展示向更广泛的公众传播结果。技术上的北极生物适应环境强迫的强烈季节性。物种的生活史与其物理和生物环境之间的微小时间错配，可能会对它们和整个北极生态系统产生重大后果。气候变暖可能会导致海冰上的积雪提前融化，并加速其在北极的消退，从而导致海洋初级生产力的时间(物候)发生变化。这种变化将对依赖初级生产的远洋消费者产生重大影响。这项研究的重点是通过以单一优势物种为模型，了解物理环境、初级生产的时间和规模以及中上层消费者的次级生产之间的耦合。冰河哲水蚤是北极生态系统的重要成员，在海冰和海洋状况、初级生产、次生生产、上层营养层消费者和最终人类社区之间的联系中至关重要。它还遵循与北冰洋冰藻和浮游植物初级生产的脉冲密切相关的生活史，使其成为一个有吸引力的研究重点，因为该生活史可能容易受到气候引起的生物和物理环境破坏的影响。其目标是：描述过去的状况并预测影响生产反应的选定海洋物理环境特征(如海冰、水温)的未来变化；探索控制冰盖隐翅虫种群动态的物理和生物因素；调查其空间分布的年际变异性和在持续气候变化下生活史战略的可能转变；以及确定这些空间和时间转变对二次生产及以后的影响。这项研究将把基于桡足类个体的模型和基于浓度的生物-冰-海洋模型结合成一个空间上明确的生物-物理耦合模型，整合遥感和现场观测数据以及实验室得出的桡足类生命率，以预测未来气候变化情景下的浮游生物产量。

NontechnicalThis project will demonstrate the impact of climate-induced changes in the arctic physical system on the timing of primary production and a single important copepod species. This species serves as a model for understanding the interplay between the physical and biological processes in arctic systems and how the changing timing and sequence of events due to climate change may influence the success or failure of that species. The results can be extrapolated to other organisms and groups that are similarly dependent on seasonal cycles and on the timing of events in the physical and biological environment to better predict the changes in this ecosystem under changing climate.The project will introduce K-12 students to ways in which climate change may influence ecosystems in the Arctic. The educational activities and curricula developed through this project will be made available broadly and the team plans to sponsor one undergraduate each year in a student fellowship program to pursue a research project associated with this work. A post-doctoral investigator will participate in the modeling and the team will disseminate its results to the scientific community through conferences and meetings and to the broader public through social media and online presence.TechnicalArctic organisms are adapted to the strong seasonality of environmental forcing. A small timing mismatch between species' life histories and their physical and biological environment can have significant consequences for them and for the entire arctic ecosystem. Climate warming is likely to cause earlier snowmelt on sea ice and speed its retreat in the Arctic, thus causing variability in the timing (phenology) of marine primary production. Such changes will significantly impact the pelagic consumers that rely on that primary production. The focus of this study is to understand the coupling between the physical environment, the timing and magnitude of primary production, and the secondary production of pelagic consumers by focusing on a single dominant species as a model. The copepod Calanus glacialis is a key member of arctic ecosystems, critical in the linkages among sea ice and ocean conditions, primary production, secondary production, upper trophic level consumers, and ultimately human communities. It also follows a life history that is closely timed to pulses of ice algal and phytoplankton primary production in the Arctic Ocean, making it an attractive focus of study because of the potential vulnerability of that life history to climatically induced disruptions to the biological and physical environment. The objectives are: to describe past conditions and predict future changes to selected characteristics of the marine physical environment that influence the production response (e.g., sea ice, water temperature); to explore the physical and biological factors controlling C. glacialis population dynamics; to investigate the interannual variability of its spatial distributions and possible shifts in life history strategy under ongoing climate change; and to identify the implications of those spatial and temporal shifts to secondary production and beyond. The research will combine a copepod individual-based model and a concentration-based biology-ice-ocean model into a spatially-explicit biological-physical coupled model, integrating remotely sensed and in-situ observational data and laboratory-derived copepod vital rates to project plankton production under future climate change scenarios.