Biological processes in the mesopelagic zone of the North Pacific: active carbon transport

海洋生态学家面临的一个重大挑战是能够预测气候变化对海洋，特别是深海、远洋生态系统的影响，包括酸化、变暖和氧气减少。生物将碳从上层的绿化带中去除并输出到较深的水域，称为生物泵，在决定表面二氧化碳交换方面起着可变但重要的作用。从透光带被动输出和主动输出的有机质中，90%以上在透光带底部（~ 100 m）至深度大于1000 m的中深海层内再矿化。其中一些物质以养分、微量元素和二氧化碳的形式在十年或更短的时间内返回地表，而剩余的有机物质则转移到深海内部并储存数千年。尽管中远洋领域的重要性和幅员辽阔，但它是海洋中研究最少的区域之一，因此我们预测在光带、深海和海洋边缘之间驱动二氧化碳和营养物质交换的过程的能力是有限的。拟议研究的长期目标是对海洋中上层浮游生物和微浮游生物的组成、多样性、密度和稳定性的基本生态原理有一个广泛的了解。我们希望确定极地、温带和热带地区中上层带的结构和碳循环的diss /相似性；其次，建立一个生态系统模型（未来的合作努力），提供上层-中层-深海领域之间的机制联系。以东北太平洋中上层为研究重点的短期研究目标将：(a)有助于表征东温带和亚北极太平洋中上层浮游生物和微浮游生物的组成和垂直结构；(b)中上层食物网的结构和多样性与上覆生产力以及地下氧浓度之间的联系；(c)量化不同微粒子群从表层向中水体的总碳主动输运量；(d)定量评估“神秘食物网”。这将建立在温哥华岛西海岸和帕帕站（亚北极太平洋西部）长期监测项目提供的研究机会的基础上。如果中水域将成为未来捕捞的目标，这项拟议中的研究将对全球渔业具有重要意义。总的来说，它将用于合作努力，以发展北太平洋生物物理/渔业耦合模式。通过提供关于中水食物网的新信息，该提案将为跨学科、多国倡议的发展奠定基础，以了解中上层生态系统及其在海洋碳循环中的作用，以及在开放海洋中发展基于生态系统的管理。

A significant challenge for marine ecologists is to be able to predict climate change impacts, including acidification, warming and oxygen decline, on marine, particularly deep-sea, pelagic ecosystems. Biological removal of carbon from the upper, euphotic zone and export to the deeper waters, called the biological pump, plays a variable but significant role in determining carbon dioxide exchange at the surface. Greater than 90% of the organic matter exported both passively and actively from the euphotic zone is remineralized within the mesopelagic layer, which extends from the bottom of the euphotic zone (~ 100 m) to depths greater than 1000 m. Some of this material is returned to the surface as nutrients, microelements and carbon dioxide on decadal scales or less, while the remaining organic material is transferred to the deep ocean interior and stored for millennia. Despite importance and vastness, the mesopelagic realm is among the least studied regions of the ocean and thus our ability to predict the processes driving exchange in carbon dioxide and nutrients between the euphotic zone, deep-ocean and ocean margins is limited. The long-term goal of proposed research is to develop a broad understanding of the fundamental ecological principles driving the composition, diversity, density and stability of the mesopelagic plankton and micronekton in the ocean. We would like to identify the diss-/similarities in the structure and carbon cycling of mesopelagic zones in polar, temperate and tropical regions; second, to build an ecosystem model (future collaborative effort) that provides mechanistic links between epipelagic-mesopelagic-bathypelagic realms. The short term goals of the proposed study with the spatial focus on the NE Pacific mesopelagic zone will (a) contribute to a characterization of the composition and vertical structure of mesopelagic plankton and micronekton in the eastern temperate and sub-Arctic Pacific; (b) link structure and diversity of mesopelagic food webs to overlaying productivity, as well as to subsurface oxygen concentrations; (c) quantify the total carbon active transport from surface layers into midwaters by different groups of micronekton; and (d) assess quantitatively the "cryptic food web". This will be built upon research opportunities provided by the long-standing monitoring programs off the west coast of Vancouver Island and at the Station Papa (western sub-Arctic Pacific). The proposed research will be important to global fisheries if midwater realm will become targeted for the future harvest. Broadly, it will be used in a collaborative effort to develop a coupled biophysical/fishery model of North Pacific. By providing novel information on midwater food webs, this proposal will lay foundation to the development of an interdisciplinary, multinational initiative to understand the mesopelagic ecosystem and its role in the marine carbon cycle as well to develop ecosystem-based management in the open ocean.