New aquatic tools: seismic oceanography, and a new method to measure lagrangian exchange

我的研究有三个新的探索领域，分别是地震海洋学（提供洋流、漩涡和海浪的详细图像）、幼虫运输和差异混合（可能影响我们的海洋气候模型）。我会告诉你追踪幼虫的新方法。克里斯·塔格特和我正在开发一种简单，廉价，但非常有效的系统来确定洋流可以把小鱼和珊瑚卵等小物体带到哪里。知道水流能把幼虫带到哪里，有多快，就像知道蒲公英种子能吹到哪里一样，是它们生活史上的一个重要因素。例如，珊瑚礁对疾病、白化或风暴造成的物理破坏的敏感性，在很大程度上取决于珊瑚礁能否从邻近的珊瑚礁中获得幼虫的补充。一个健康的珊瑚礁需要多近才能成功地补充一个患病的珊瑚礁？类似的问题也出现在鱼类和龙虾种群中。这个系统简单而优雅：我们向水中释放许多含有磁铁矿的小塑料颗粒。这些颗粒像幼虫一样漂浮，由于有磁铁矿，它们将被先前停泊在幼虫可能漂浮的地方的水下磁铁收集。每个收集器捕获的颗粒数量提供了重要的信息：珊瑚幼虫从X点漂流到A、B、C等点的可能性有多大？该系统还有许多其他潜在的应用，包括水产养殖（贻贝是如何到达贻贝养殖场的？）和土木工程（城市风暴系统中的雨水在哪里以及流速有多快？）

My research has three new explorations, titled seismic oceanography (which gives detailed images of ocean currents, eddies and waves), larval transport, and differential mixing (which could affect our ocean climate models).  I will tell you about new ways to trace larvae. Chris Taggart and I are developing a simple, inexpensive, but very effective system for determining where ocean currents can carry small objects like fish and coral eggs.  Knowing where and how fast currents can carry larvae is, like knowing where dandelion seeds can blow, an important factor in their life history.  For example, the sensitivity of a coral reef to disease, bleaching, or physical damage from storms depends critically on whether the reef can be replenished with larvae from adjacent reefs.  How close must a healthy reef be to successfully replenish a diseased one?  Similar questions occur for fish and lobster populations. The system is elegant in its simplicity: we release into the water many small plastic particles containing magnetite.  These particles drift like larvae, and because of the magnetite, they will be collected by underwater magnets previously moored where larvae might drift.  The number of particles caught in each collector provides the important information: how likely is it that coral larvae can drift from point X to points A, B, C,  and so forth?   The system has many other potential applications, including aquaculture (how does mussel spat get to mussel farms?) and civil engineering (where and how fast does storm water flow in a city's storm system?).