Long-term Ecological Research at the North Inlet Estuary

将重新强调北水口生态系统内以过程为基础的相互作用和反馈。正在进行的长期采样计划的耦合将以过程为基础的实验和横断面分析跨生态梯度是计划的。基于对生态系统结构长期时间变异性的良好描述，项目重点将转向旨在解释这种变异性的实验。这些以过程为导向的研究将集中在沼泽栖息地正在侵蚀沿海森林的地区。将对该分水岭内的横断面进行采样，以监测营养物质的时空变化、有机物的沉积、动植物生物量、鱼类迁徙和水的运动。选择样带上的位置将提供对沼泽演变等非常长期的过程的洞察。这些措施将与关于营养循环、沉积、分解、初级生产、施肥、营养动态和补充的实验相结合，以协调努力，强调交换和转化过程。将开发各种空间和时间尺度的生态系统模型。他们将描述和总结北海湾主要结构和功能栖息地的复杂性，检验假设，构建我们的实地实验，并最终纳入大型景观/气候模型。模型将把我们的注意力集中在一般的系统动力学和调节系统级过程的化学、物理和生物相互作用上。这一重点将反过来使北海湾长期热辐射研究项目处于有利地位，以评估扰动事件(例如飓风)、全球气候变化和区域土地利用变化对不同规模的系统进程的影响。关键的长期数据集将延长到第二个十年。这种与过去的连续性提供了对河口结构长期变化的测量，也是观察变化的指标。对这些长期数据集的短期变异性的统计分析表明，某些受环境控制的参数，如叶绿素浓度或季节性鱼类迁徙，是可以合理预测的，而其他较受生物控制的参数，如浮游动物丰度或底栖动物的成功补充，则无法预测，而且可能在季节内和季节之间变化很大。

A new emphasis on process-based interactions and feedbacks within the North Inlet ecosystem will be carried out. The coupling of ongoing long-term sampling programs will process-based experiments and transect analyses across ecological gradients is planned. Based upon good descriptions of the long-term temporal variability in ecosystem structure, project emphasis will shift toward experiments designed to explain that variation. These process-oriented studies will concentrate on areas where marsh habitats are encroaching into the coastal forest. Transects within this watershed will be sampled to monitor spatial and temporal variations in nutrients, the deposition of organic matter, plant and animal biomass, fish migrations, and water movements. Select locations along a transect will provide insights on very long-term processes such as marsh evolution. These measurements will be combined with experiments on nutrient cycling, sedimentation, decomposition, primary production, fertilization, trophic dynamics and recruitment in a coordinated effort that emphasizes exchange and transformation process. Ecosystem models at a variety of spatial and temporal scales will be developed. They will characterize and summarize the complexity of the major structural and functional habitats within North Inlet, test hypotheses, structure our field experiments, and ultimately, be incorporated into large landscape/climate models. Models will focus our attention on general systems dynamics and the chemical, physical and biological interactions which regulate system level processes. This focus will, in turn, place the North Inlet LTER project in a strong position to evaluate the impacts of disturbance events (e.g., hurricanes), global climate change and regional land-use change on system processes at various scales. Key long-term datasets will be extended into a second decade. This continuity with the past provides the measurements of long- term variations in the estuarine structure, the indices by which change is observed. Statistical analyses of the short-term variability in these long-term data sets have shown that certain environmentally controlled parameters, such as chlorophyll concentrations or seasonal fish migrations, are reasonably predictable, while other more biological controlled parameters, such as the zooplankton abundance or recruitment success of benthos, were unpredictable and likely to vary greatly within and between seasons.