Effects of Sediment Transport on Particulate Food Quality and Quantity for Benthic Heterotrophs

Drs。Nowell， Jumars和Mayer将进行几项补充研究，以确定沿海环境中沉积物运输与底栖动物食物的质量和数量之间的关系。他们将专注于颗粒食物质量的沉积饲料，虽然许多结果也应该是有用的悬浮饲料，异养细菌，和一般的异养。研究范围将从食品质量的实地测量，到工程食品材料喂养反应的实验室实验，再到实验室水槽实验，测试沉积物动力学与食品质量变量之间的关系。有了方便获取的物种和这些估计，他们将研究沉积物取食者受益于水平沉积物运输，因为资源的简单横向均质化导致食物供应率的增加，地表沉积物取食者受益于再悬浮和再沉积产生的垂直水动力分选。而沉积物喂食者受益于运输过程中刺激微生物的生长。

Drs. Nowell, Jumars and Mayer will undertake several complementary studies to determine the relationship between sediment transport in coastal environments and the quality and quantity of food for benthic animals. They will focus on particulate food quality for deposit feeders, although many of the results also should be useful for suspension feeders, heterotrophic bacteria, and heterotrophs in general. The studies will range from field measurements of food quality, to laboratory experiments of feeding responses with engineered food materials, to laboratory flume experiments testing the relationships between sediment dynamics and food quality variables. With species conveniently available and these estimates, they will investigate the ideas that deposit feeders benefit from horizontal sediment transport as an increase in rate of food supply due to simple lateral homogenization of the resource, that surface deposit feeders benefit from the vertical hydrodynamic sorting produced by resuspension and redeposition, and that deposit feeders benefit from stimulation of microbial growth due to transport.