Quantifying the role of deep-sea animal forests in the blue carbon

鉴于解决气候危机的迫切需要，海洋生态系统在全球碳储存和埋藏中的作用是一个相当感兴趣的话题。“蓝碳”概念考虑了海洋生物捕获的所有生物碳，占所有生物捕获碳的一半以上。虽然许多研究都集中在沿海被子植物和藻类为主的系统上，但动物在调节生物地球化学过程及其对碳储存和交换的影响中的重要性已经被注意到。最近，沿海海洋动物森林作为潜在碳汇的作用得到了强调。沿海环境只占海洋的一小部分。大部分海洋（约90%）被认为是深海。在深海生物群系中，各种动物森林的存在是有据可查的。这些动物林往往以长寿的黑珊瑚、竹珊瑚和柳珊瑚或大型结构形成海绵为主。深海动物森林在碳收支中的潜在作用在很大程度上是未知的，但深海生态系统的巨大规模表明，这种作用可能是重要的。该项目将利用一系列实验室、深度学习和建模技术，对深海动物在碳预算中的作用进行初步估计。学生将量化选定深海物种的有机碳含量，将深度学习技术应用于深海图像和视频分析，生成物种密度数据集，在大西洋盆地尺度上模拟物种密度，并绘制评估海洋保护区重要性的碳汇空间分布图。

The role of marine ecosystems in global carbon storage and burial is a topic of considerable interest given the urgent need to address the climate crisis. The 'Blue Carbon' concept considers all the biological carbon captured by marine living organisms, and represents over half of all biologically captured carbon. While much research has been focused on coastal angiosperm and algal dominated systems, the importance of animals in mediating biogeochemical processes and their effects on carbon storage and exchange have been noted. Recently the role of coastal marine animal forests as potential carbon sinks has been highlighted. The coastal environment represents only a fraction of the ocean. Most of the ocean (~90%) is considered deep sea. Within the deep-sea biome the presence of various animal forests is well documented. These animal forests tend to be dominated by long-lived black, bamboo, and gorgonian corals, or large structure forming sponges. The potential role of deep-sea animal forests in the carbon budget is largely unknown, but the vast size of the deep-sea ecosystem suggests that role may be significant. This studentship will focus on providing the first estimates of the role of deep-sea animals in the carbon budget using a range of lab, deep-learning, and modelling techniques. The student will quantify the organic carbon content of selected deep-sea species, apply deep-learning techniques to deep-sea image and video analysis to generate species density datasets, model the density of species at the Atlantic basin scale, and map the spatial distribution of carbon sinks assessing MPA importance.