Modeling Life in the Future Ocean

政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）已经启动了一系列全球模型的开发，以分析气候变化如何影响我们的环境。其重点是环境参数（温度、pH值等）。而迄今为止，关于气候变化如何在全球范围内影响地球上的生命的研究却很少。对于陆地系统，这已经被用于气候变化与土地利用模式相结合如何影响未来全球生物多样性的模型，但海洋的类似分析仍然需要。 海洋为我们提供海产食品和许多其他服务，由于过度捕捞，上个世纪鱼类数量严重减少。因此，尽管全球捕捞能力继续增加，但海洋现在提供的海产品比1980年左右的高峰捕鱼年少。 我们捕的鱼越来越多，但捕获的却越来越少。更糟糕的是，全球海洋的生产力可能会受到气候变化的严重影响。 现有的几个预测指出，鱼类物种的广泛重新分布，通常是在极地方向，总体生产力将下降，特别是在热带。 这些预测主要基于生理约束的建模，但没有考虑生态相互作用，自上而下和自下而上的力量如何影响海产品生产。从本质上讲，不清楚捕食者和被捕食者物种的重新分布将如何影响其生产力，也不清楚管理互动或海洋生产力模式变化的潜在影响。我们从区域生态系统研究中了解到，为了复制人口随时间的趋势，我们必须一致考虑所有这些因素;因此，在全球层面上建模时也应该考虑这些因素。 通过这一发现补助金的目的是开发和应用一个考虑环境生产力，食物网和渔业影响的全球海洋生态系统模型，并测试关键生态和建模过程的替代假设。全球模型旨在提供合理的预测，说明未来海产品生产可能如何受到气候变化的影响，以及替代减缓措施可能取得成功的可能性。这项研究的基本主题是解决这样一个问题：将来会有海鲜和健康的海洋供后代享用吗？

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has sparked the development of an ensemble of global models to analyze how climate change impacts our environment. The focus of this has been on environmental parameters (temperature, pH, etc.) while there up to now has been but little research on how climate change may impact life on earth at the global scale. For terrestrial systems this has been followed up with models for how climate change combined with land use patterns may be impacting future global biodiversity, but similar analysis for the oceans are still wanting. The oceans supply us with seafood, among many other services, and there have been serious declines in fish populations over the last century due to overexploitation. As a result, the oceans now supply less seafood than they did in the peak fish years around 1980 even though fishing capacity has continued to increase globally. We fish more, but catch less. Adding to the problem is that the productivity of the world ocean may become seriously impacted by climate change. The few existing predictions point to widespread redistributions of fish species, generally in polar directions, and that overall productivity will decline, especially in the tropic. These projections are based on modeling with mainly physiological constraints but with no considerations for how ecological interactions, top-down and bottom-up forces impact seafood production. In essence, it is not clear how the redistributions of predator and prey species will impact their productivity, nor is the potential impacts of management interactions or changes in ocean productivity patterns. We have learned though from regional ecosystem studies that to replicate population trends over time we have to consider all of these factors in concert; hence they should also be considered for modeling at the global level. It is the intention through this Discovery Grant to develop and apply an ecosystem model of the global ocean that considers environmental productivity, food web and fisheries effects, and to test alternative hypotheses for key ecological and modeling processes. The global model is designed to provide plausible predictions for how future seafood production may be impacted by climate change and of the likelihood that alternative mitigation measures may be successful. The underlying theme for the research is to address the question: Will there be seafood and a healthy ocean for future generations to enjoy?