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

该项目将展示气候引起的北极物理系统变化对初级生产时间和单一重要桡足类物种的影响。该物种可以作为理解北极系统中物理和生物过程之间相互作用的模型，以及气候变化引起的事件时间和顺序的变化如何影响该物种的成功或失败。这些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周期和物理和生物环境中事件的时间，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，该团队计划每年在学生奖学金计划中赞助一名本科生，以开展与这项工作相关的研究项目。一名博士后研究员将参与建模，该团队将通过会议和会议向科学界传播其结果，并通过社交媒体和在线存在向更广泛的公众传播其结果。从技术上讲，北极生物适应了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一个微小的时间不匹配可能对它们和整个北极生态系统产生重大后果。气候变暖可能导致海冰提前融雪，并加速北极海冰的退缩，从而导致海洋初级生产时间（物候学）的变化。这种变化将对依赖初级产品的远洋消费者产生重大影响。本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与远洋消费者次级生产之间的耦合关系。桡足动物是北极生态系统的重要成员，在海冰与海洋条件、初级生产、次级生产、上层营养层消费者以及最终人类社区之间的联系中起着至关重要的作用。它还遵循与北冰洋冰藻和浮游植物初级生产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。目标是：描述过去的情况，并预测影响生产响应的海洋物理环境某些特征（如海冰、水温）的未来变化；探讨控制冰原种群动态的物理和生物因素；探讨持续气候变化下其空间分布的年际变化及其生活史策略的可能转变；并确定这些空间和时间转移对次要生产和其他生产的影响。该研究将基于桡足动物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明确的生物-物理耦合模型，整合遥感和原位观测数据以及实验室衍生的桡足动物生命速率，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.