Collaborative Research: Formation and Persistence of Benthic Biological Hotspots in the Pacific Arctic

合作研究：北极太平洋底栖生物热点的形成和持续

• 批准号: 1603466
• 负责人: Robert Campbell
• 金额: $ 8.47万
• 依托单位: University of Rhode Island
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2021-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1603466&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Formation; Persistence; Benthic

Persistently high macrofaunal benthic biomass has been observed at four major benthic hotspots in the Northern Bering and Chukchi Seas. These highly productive benthic communities are ecologically important and provide abundant prey for benthic-feeding marine mammals and seabirds. This grant supports the exploration of the physical and biological processes that contribute to the formation of these benthic hotspots, and a determination of how changes in the Arctic system (including ice, ocean, and atmospheric forcing) will affect their formation and persistence. A better understanding of the mechanisms for the formation and persistence of these benthic hotspots is important and requires the atmosphere-ice-ocean system approach taken in this study, since these formation mechanisms involve multiple components of the Arctic system, including both biological and physical components of sea ice and ocean processes and atmospheric forcing. The group will integrate a suite of models, including an ice-ocean-ecosystem coupled model and a Lagrangian particle-tracking model, to evaluate source, transport pathway, and supply of organic matter to the benthic community. The modeling will span the entire system from atmospheric forcing down to particle export flux. Explicitly modeling benthic-pelagic coupling is needed for a mechanistic understanding of the ecosystem structure in the Pacific Arctic region and will provide baseline information to better predict future ecosystem shifts. Once the model validation and synthesis with observations are accomplished, the project will have a broad-scale description of the existing and potential locations of benthic hotspots and carbon sources for benthic hotspots across the entire northern Bering and Chukchi Seas, including regions that are presently under-sampled, and their vulnerabilities to ongoing climate and environmental changes. It will also have a better understanding of the mechanisms contributing to benthic hotspot formation (e.g., zooplankton grazing, seasonal and inter-annual variability in advected inputs of production and/or nutrients, role of currents, convergences, turbulence, and particle aggregation in hotspot formation, timing of sea ice formation, cover, and retreat, inter-annual or long-term differences in atmospheric forcing). Both can contribute to the design of future field efforts, since the comprehensive spatial distribution of hotspot location can guide place-based field efforts and the relative importance of modeled ecosystem processes and transformations will inform needs for process studies and distributional studies. With ongoing climate change, atmospheric forcing and ocean currents are likely to change in strength and direction, potentially modifying the locations where the convergence of these mechanisms promotes enhanced carbon export and benthic hotspot formation. Understanding of how these linked mechanisms operate to produce the existing benthic hotspots will permit us to predict empirically their future persistence or relocation. The results of the modeling effort can be used both by the scientific community in guiding future fieldwork and modeling efforts and more broadly by managers and policy makers in guiding the development and implementation of management and commercial strategies and guidelines. This work will include outreach activities primarily focused on K-12 education, focusing on the importance of atmospheric forcing, sea ice, currents, and benthic-pelagic coupling to the Bering/Chukchi Sea system and the impacts of ongoing climate change on that system.

在Bering北部和Chukchi海域的四个主要底栖热点已经观察到了持续高的大圆面底栖生物量。这些高产的底栖群落在生态上很重要，并为底栖喂养海洋哺乳动物和海鸟提供了丰富的猎物。该赠款支持探索有助于这些底栖热点形成的物理和生物过程，并确定北极系统的变化（包括冰，海洋和大气强迫）如何影响其形成和持久性。更好地理解这些底栖热点的形成和持久性的机制很重要，并且需要本研究中采用的大气冰山系统方法，因为这些形成机制涉及北极系统的多个组成部分，包括海冰和大洋过程和大洋过程和大气强度的生物学和物理成分。该小组将集成一系列模型，包括冰山生态系统耦合模型和拉格朗日粒子跟踪模型，以评估向底栖群落的来源，传输途径和有机物供应。该建模将跨越整个系统，从大气强迫到粒子导出通量。对于太平洋北极地区的生态系统结构的机械理解，需要明确建模底栖 - - - - 彼得耦合，并将提供基线信息以更好地预测未来的生态系统变化。一旦完成了观察结果的模型验证和合成，该项目将对底栖热点的现有和潜在位置进行广泛的描述，用于整个北部白令和丘奇海域的底栖热点的现有位置，包括目前易于采样及其易受到的气候和环境变化的区域。它还将更好地理解造成底栖热点形成的机制（例如，浮游生物放牧，季节性和年龄段的生产和/或养分输入，电流的作用，收敛性，收敛性，收敛性，湍流，湍流以及粒子在热点形成中，冰冰的时间，整个冰冰的时间和层次范围或重新构建，覆盖范围或重新构建，以及范围或重新构建。两者都可以为未来的现场工作做出贡献，因为热点位置的全面空间分布可以指导基于地点的现场工作，并且建模的生态系统过程和转型的相对重要性将为过程研究和分配研究的需求提供限制。随着气候变化的持续变化，大气强迫和洋流的强度和方向可能会改变，可能会改变这些机制收敛性的位置会促进增强的碳出口和底栖热点的形成。了解这些链接机制如何运作以产生现有的底栖热点将使我们能够从经验上预测其未来的持久性或搬迁。科学界可以使用建模工作的结果来指导未来的现场工作和建模工作，以及经理和政策制定者在指导管理和实施商业策略和准则方面更广泛地使用。这项工作将包括主要专注于K-12教育的外展活动，重点是大气强迫，海冰，电流和底栖底激素耦合的重要性，以及对Bering/Chukchi Sea System的重要性以及持续的气候变化对该系统的影响。