marine aggregates and their importance as a food source to bentic suspension-feeders

有许多种类的海洋动物生活在浅海地区的海底，以水柱中悬浮的颗粒为食物来源。这些底栖动物是当地生态系统的重要成员，因为它们过滤漂浮在水柱中的颗粒，既有活的有机体，也有非活的颗粒，如沉积物。它们捕获水柱中的各种稀薄颗粒，并将其转化为肉体。反过来，它们又经常被包括人类在内的其他人吃掉，使其中一些成为食物链的重要成员，并成为当地渔业和水产养殖业务的基础。这项拟议的研究旨在更好地了解哪些环境因素，特别是悬浮食品颗粒的数量和类型，影响食物能量的吸收和转化为身体组织。了解这一点很重要，因为增长率将决定个体被招募到渔业的速度或从水产养殖场捕捞它们的速度。众所周知，这些颗粒中的一些会粘在一起，形成更大的聚集体或海洋雪。这些聚集体在自然界中非常脆弱，很难取样，我们真的不太了解它们作为食物来源的营养价值，或者事实上大多数底栖动物是否可以捕获或吃掉它们。长期以来，人们一直认为，这些悬浮的聚集体是能量从水柱流向底部并流向食物链其他层面的重要纽带，然而，几乎没有实验证据支持这一点。这些颗粒可能代表着对海底的主要食物供应，并对底栖物种的摄食策略、生长速度和繁殖周期产生重大影响。这项提议的目标将是评估当地芬迪湾栖息地脆弱的海洋雪的特征，在那里我将研究当地底栖物种捕获和食用这种鲜为人知的食物来源的能力。

There are many types of marine animals that live on the ocean floor in shallow coastal areas and rely on particles suspended in the water column as a food source. These bottom, or benthic, animals are important members of the local ecosystem because they filter particles floating in the water column, both living organisms and non-living particles such as sediments. They capture a variety of dilute particles in the water column and convert them into flesh. They in turn are often eaten by others, including man, making some of them important members of food chains and the basis for local fisheries and aquaculture operations. The proposed research looks to provide a better understanding as to which environmental factors, in particular the number and type of suspended food particles, influence the uptake of food energy and conversion to body tissue. This is important to know because growth rates will determine how quickly individuals are recruited to a fishery or how rapidly they can be harvested from an aquaculture site. Some of these particles are known to stick together and form larger aggregates or marine snow. These aggregates are very fragile in nature making them difficult to sample and we really do not know much about their nutritional value as a food sources or in fact whether most benthic animals can capture or eat them. It has long been thought that these suspended aggregates represent an important link in the flow of energy from the water column to the bottom and on to other levels of the food chains, however there is little experimental evidence to support this. These particles could represent a major food supply to the bottom of the ocean and have significant impacts on feeding strategies, growth rates and reproductive cycles of benthic species. The objectives of this proposal will be to assess the characteristics of fragile marine snow in the local Bay of Fundy habitats where I will be studying the ability of local benthic species to capture and eat this little known food source.