CAREER: Resolving vertical trophic linkages between surface and deep pelagic food webs

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。这个职业奖促进了我们对表层和深海海洋食物网之间联系的理解，这反过来又对海洋中的碳循环具有重要意义。虽然深度超过200米的海洋生态系统包含了地球上最大的单一栖息地，但深海生物的食物网关系却没有得到很好的解决。研究人员正在评估鱼类、鱿鱼、甲壳类动物和胶状动物的主动运输，这些动物通过摄食和垂直迁移将有机物质从更多产的表层转移到更深的水域。她将物种丰度和分布的数据与稳定同位素生物标志物的测量相结合，以了解营养关系，并将南加州洋流生态系统中的群落组成和迁徙行为与食物网过程联系起来。这位研究人员来自一个传统上在科学领域代表性不足的群体，她设计了一个全面的教育计划，通过实地实践和研究经验，培养更多样化、更包容的一代海洋生物学家。除了为研究生和本科生直接参与这项研究提供支持外，研究者还创建了一个新颖而有凝聚力的本科课程，其中包括一个航海实验室课程，教授跨学科领域的方法来进行远洋生态系统的研究，以及一个强调土著和土著知识的研讨会课程，以及更传统的海洋学研究。总体目标是通过结合跨学科的实践研究、指导以及扩大少数和多数科学家的网络来扩大对科学的参与。本研究以维诺格拉多夫的“迁徙阶梯”为概念框架，目的是通过重叠的垂直迁徙和摄食来理解生物体和有机物向深海的累积向下运输。它的重点是微浮游生物的作用，被定义为~2-20厘米的鱼类、头足类、甲壳类和胶状动物，它们是南加州洋流生态系统中表层有机物的活跃转运者，跨越上层、中上层和上层深海层。一项研究巡航正在全面系统地对深海微藻群落进行采样，并补充在该生态系统的地表水中收集的长期数据。深度离散moness tow是采样生物来评估微物种丰度、生物量和垂直迁移的程度，以了解分类群的相对组成如何驱动垂直连通性。生物组织中大量碳氮稳定同位素分析和氨基酸化合物特异性同位素分析（AA-CSIA）为深海食物网提供了定量评估，并测量了不同环境梯度下表层和深层水组合之间营养联系的相对强度和组成。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This CAREER award is advancing our understanding of connections between surface and deep water ocean food webs, which in turn has important implications for carbon cycling in the ocean. Although marine ecosystems deeper than 200 m encompass Earth’s largest single habitat, the food web relationships of deep-sea organisms are poorly resolved. The investigator is evaluating active transport by fishes, squids, crustaceans, and gelatinous animals that move organic matter from the more productive surface into deeper waters through feeding and diel vertical migration. She is using a combination of data on abundance and distribution of species with measurements of stable isotope biomarkers to understand trophic relationships and connect community composition and migratory behavior with food-web processes in the southern California Current ecosystem. The investigator is from a group traditionally underrepresented in science, and she has designed a comprehensive educational plan to train a more diverse, inclusive generation of seagoing biological oceanographers through hands-on field and research experiences. In addition to providing support for graduate and undergraduate students to participate directly in this research, the investigator is creating a novel and cohesive undergraduate curriculum involving a seagoing laboratory course to teach interdisciplinary field methods to conduct research on pelagic ecosystems and a seminar course highlighting Native and Indigenous knowledge alongside more traditional oceanographic research. The overall goal is to broaden participation in science by combining hands-on interdisciplinary research, mentoring, and expanding networks of minority and majority scientists.This study centers around Vinogradov’s “ladder of migrations” as a conceptual framework, with the goal of understanding cumulative downward transport of organisms and organic matter to the deep ocean by overlapping vertical migrations and feeding. It is focusing on the role of micronekton, defined as ~2-20 cm fishes, cephalopods, crustaceans, and gelatinous animals, as active transporters of surface-derived organic matter across epipelagic, mesopelagic, and upper-bathypelagic layers in the southern California Current Ecosystem. One research cruise is sampling deep pelagic micronekton communities comprehensively and systematically and complements long-term data collected in the surface waters of this ecosystem. Depth-discrete MOCNESS tows are sampling organisms to assess micronekton abundance, biomass, and extent of diel vertical migrations to understand how relative compositions of taxa drive vertical connectivity. Analysis of bulk carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes and compound-specific isotopic analyses of amino acids (AA-CSIA) in organism tissue are providing quantitative assessments of deep-pelagic food webs and measuring the relative strength and composition of trophic linkages between surface and deeper water assemblages across distinct environmental gradients.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.