The role of sympagic meiofauna for the flow of organic matter and energy in the Antarctic and Arctic sea-ice foodwebs

两极地区海冰中的盐水通道是共生细菌、藻类、原生动物和小型后生动物（小型底栖动物）的栖息地，包括桡足类、扁蠕虫、轮虫、线虫、刺胞动物、裸鳃类和栉水母。同层藻类的初级生产构成海冰食物网的基础，与水层生态系统和较高的营养水平相联系。该项目的目的是确定同相小型底栖生物在海冰食物网中有机物质和能量流动中的作用，这一点迄今尚不清楚。提出的问题是：什么是占主导地位的symagic小型底栖生物类群的主要食物来源？摄食率是什么，与食物密度和食草动物/捕食者的函数关系是什么？放牧和捕食对不同群落组成的影响是什么？同生海洋小型底栖生物对同生海洋群落的动态有何影响？这些问题是通过肠道内容物分析，生化分析，饲养实验和建模相结合来解决的。研究结果将有助于理解冰覆盖的海洋生态系统的功能生态学。

The brine channels in sea ice of both polar regions are the habitat of sympagic (iceassociated) bacteria, algae, protozoans and small metazoans (meiofauna), including copepods, plathyelminthes, rotifers, nematodes, cnidarians, nudibranchs and ctenophores. Primary production of sympagic algae forms the basis of the sea-ice food web, which is coupled to the pelagic ecosystem and higher trophic levels. This project aims to determine the, as yet unknown, role of sympagic meiofauna for the flow of organic matter and energy through the sea-ice food web. The questions raised are: What are the major food sources of the dominant sympagic meiofauna taxa? What are the ingestion rates, and what is the functional relationship to density of food and grazers / predators? What is the grazing and predation impact with different community compositions? How are the dynamics of the sympagic community influenced by sympagic meiofauna? These questions are addressed by a combination of gut content analyses, biochemical analyses, feeding experiments and modelling. The results will contribute to the understanding of the functional ecology of ice-covered ocean ecosystems.