Quantifying the drivers of midwater zooplankton community structure

量化中层浮游动物群落结构的驱动因素

• 批准号: 1948162
• 负责人: Leocadio Blanco-Bercial
• 金额: $ 55.08万
• 依托单位: Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-04-01 至 2025-02-28
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1948162&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Quantifying; drivers; midwater; zooplankton; community

Processes in the midwater region below 200 m depth, also known as the twilight zone, represent a major unknown for the biology and chemistry of the ocean. Studies of animals drifting in the oceans, known as zooplankton, are scarce due to the difficulty and associated time and costs of sampling deep waters. The advent of automated image analysis and genetic tools is leading to a rapid increase in our knowledge of the diversity, abundances and size distribution of communities in shallow waters. However, our understanding of the deeper layers of the ocean is still in its infancy, and there are few studies that combine these three facets of the ecology of the zooplankton. The objective of this project is to leverage existing samples, obtained from previously NSF-funded research in the North Pacific and North Atlantic, to study how the abundances, diversity, and size distribution of zooplankton in the midwater vary with latitude and environmental factors. Automated image analyses provide information on abundance and size, and genetic analyses give unprecedented data on the diversity of the midwater community for the North Atlantic and the North Pacific, from subtropical to subarctic environments. This project provides high quality hands-on training opportunities for at least two undergraduate researchers and generates material for undergraduate and graduate courses. Two workshops train educators on the classroom use of the NSF-funded Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO) open access oceanographic data.Recent advances in image analysis and metabarcoding of zooplankton communities via new data tools are an opportunity to generate quantitative and predictive relationships between environmental drivers and zooplankton diversity, abundances and size distribution. While this information is available for plankton in epipelagic regions, the focus of this study is on midwater communities, which remain poorly characterized. Obtaining these data is the first step towards a quantitative analysis that assesses the impact of the midwater community on biogeochemical cycles. The project uses archived samples from two cruises conducted in the N. Atlantic and N. Pacific to test hypotheses about how temperature, midwater hypoxia, primary productivity and biogeographic province shape the size class structure, biodiversity and behavior (diurnal vertical migration) of zooplankton communities. These newly-generated image and metabarcoding datasets of the mesozooplankton community from 0-1000 m are cross-comparable with other ocean regions. These data describe how migratory and midwater resident zooplankton communities are structured by environmental variables and demonstrate how this influences their biogeochemical contributions (specifically active flux and midwater attenuation of flux). Data tools generated for the image analysis in combination with metabarcoding has broad application in plankton ecology and allows metanalysis of other datasets. The project is complementary to ongoing national and international projects that seek to describe the function and structure of the midwater. In contrast to existing modeling and process projects, this project covers a moderately large geographic area and thus provides a strong comparative foundation for broader community-wide assessment of the function of zooplankton in the twilight zone.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在200米深度以下的中层水区域，也被称为黄昏区，是海洋生物和化学的一个主要未知数。 由于在深海沃茨取样的困难和相关的时间和成本，对在海洋中漂流的动物（被称为浮游动物）的研究很少。自动图像分析和遗传工具的出现，使我们对浅水沃茨生物群落的多样性、丰度和大小分布的了解迅速增加。然而，我们对海洋深层的了解仍处于起步阶段，很少有联合收割机将浮游动物生态学的这三个方面结合起来。该项目的目标是利用现有的样本，从以前的NSF资助的研究在北太平洋和北大西洋，研究浮游动物的丰度，多样性和大小分布在中层水如何随纬度和环境因素而变化。 自动图像分析提供了关于丰度和大小的信息，遗传分析提供了关于北大西洋和北太平洋从亚热带到亚北极环境中层水群落多样性的前所未有的数据。该项目为至少两名本科生研究人员提供高质量的实践培训机会，并为本科生和研究生课程提供材料。两个讲习班培训教育工作者如何在课堂上使用由国家科学基金会资助的生物和化学海洋学数据管理办公室（BCO-DMO）开放获取的海洋学数据，通过新的数据工具在图像分析和浮游动物群落元条码编码方面的最新进展是一个机会，可以在环境驱动因素与浮游动物多样性、丰度和大小分布之间建立定量和预测关系。 虽然这方面的资料是在上层区域的浮游生物，这项研究的重点是中层水社区，这仍然是很差的特点。获得这些数据是定量分析的第一步，评估中层水社区对地球化学循环的影响。该项目使用了在北大西洋进行的两次巡航中的存档样本。大西洋和N.太平洋的温度，中层水缺氧，初级生产力和地理省形状的大小级结构，生物多样性和行为（昼夜垂直迁移）的浮游动物群落的假设进行测试。这些新生成的0-1000米的中型浮游动物群落的图像和元条码数据集与其他海洋区域交叉可比。这些数据描述了迁移和中层水浮游动物群落是如何由环境变量构成的，并展示了这如何影响它们的生物地球化学贡献（特别是活性通量和中层水通量衰减）。为图像分析生成的数据工具结合元条形码在浮游生物生态学中具有广泛的应用，并允许对其他数据集进行元分析。 该项目是对正在进行的旨在描述中层水功能和结构的国家和国际项目的补充。与现有的建模和过程项目相比，该项目涵盖了一个中等规模的地理区域，因此为更广泛的社区范围内对浮游动物在阴阳魔界的功能进行评估提供了一个强有力的比较基础。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

项目成果

The photic‐aphotic divide is a strong ecological and evolutionary force determining the distribution of ciliates (Alveolata, Ciliophora) in the ocean

• DOI: 10.1111/jeu.12976
• 发表时间: 2023-04
• 期刊: Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology
• 影响因子: 2.2
• 作者: L. Santoferrara;Aleena Qureshi;Amina Sher;L. Blanco-Bercial

Revealing zooplankton diversity in the midnight zone

• DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2023.1252535
• 发表时间: 2023-12-07
• 期刊: FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE
• 影响因子: 3.7
• 作者: Gonzalez，Carolina E.;Blanco-Bercial，Leocadio;Ulloa，Osvaldo
• 通讯作者: Ulloa，Osvaldo

Assessment of short-term spatio-temporal variability in the structure of mesozooplankton communities integrating microscopy and multigene high-throughput sequencing

结合显微镜和多基因高通量测序评估中型浮游生物群落结构的短期时空变异

• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecss.2022.108038
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Coastal and Shelf Science
• 作者: Yebra, Lidia;García-Gómez, Candela;Valcárcel-Pérez, Nerea;Hernández de Rojas, Alma;Blanco-Bercial, Leocadio;Castro, M. Carmen;Gómez-Jakobsen, Francisco;Mercado, Jesús M.
• 通讯作者: Mercado, Jesús M.

Use of optical imaging datasets to assess biogeochemical contributions of the mesozooplankton

使用光学成像数据集评估中型浮游动物的生物地球化学贡献

• DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbab037
• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Journal of Plankton Research
• 影响因子: 2.1
• 作者: Maas, Amy E;Gossner, Hannah;Smith, Maisie J;Blanco-Bercial, Leocadio
• 通讯作者: Blanco-Bercial, Leocadio