Collaborative Research: Food Limitation in the Deep Sea: A Test of a Paradigm Using a Long Time-Series Photographic Monitoring System with Real-Time Data Aquisition

斯克里普斯海洋学研究所和伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所的调查人员将合作开展一个项目，以解决海洋生态学的一个主要范例：浮游生物食物供应与深海底栖生物群落动态之间的联系。 在没有适当的长时间序列测量的情况下，这种耦合很难建立，而长时间序列测量又受到数据存储容量、操作仪器的电池电力的寿命、不能在真实的时间内收集/分析数据和改变采样频率以及不能在真实的时间内校正或补偿故障的限制。 该项目将在北太平洋中部5000米深处的夏威夷-2观测站（H20）建立一个长期海底观测站。 H2O是一个原型海底观测系统，通过水下电话电缆从海岸提供电力，进行实时数据采集和控制，使深海长期监测成为可能。通过将一套传感器插入H2O，PI将研究随时间变化的食物供应对深海底栖生物群落的短期和长期重要性。 1）以H20为代表的北太平洋中央环流到达海底的沉降颗粒物的质量和数量是多少？2)作为底栖生物群落活动的代表，底栖巨型动物对按小时至年的时间尺度抵达海底的颗粒物质的质量和数量有何反应？ 将安装一个监测系统，包括一个沉降传感器和数字延时摄像机，以实时监测H20现场两个20平方米海底区域的颗粒物质通量以及海底巨型动物的活动。将把微粒流入海底的时间变化与复制摄影区的移动的海底巨型动物的丰度和活动进行比较。通过一年的测试，实时采集和分析数据，并有能力改变从海岸取样的频率，将首次对深海海底进行长期生态监测，以解决食物限制对深海底栖生物群落的重要性。

Investigators at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will collaborate on a project to tackle a major paradigm in marine ecology: the coupling between a pelagically-derived food supply and the dynamics of deep-sea benthic communities. This coupling has been difficult to establish without appropriate long time-series measurements, which in turn have been limited by data storage capacity, longevity of battery power to operate instrumentation, the inability to collect/analyze data and alter sampling frequencies in real time, and the inability to correct or compensate for malfunctions in real time. The PIs will establish a long-term seafloor observing site by tapping into the Hawaii-2 Observatory (H20) at 5000 m depth in the central North Pacific. H2O is a prototype seafloor observing system that has made long-term monitoring possible in the deep sea, by providing electrical power from shore with real-time data acquisition and control via an underwater telephone cable. By plugging a suite of sensors into H2O, the PIs will study the short and long-term importance of a temporally-varying food supply on an abyssal benthic community. The following questions will be afddressed: 1) What is the quality and quantity of sinking particulate matter reaching the sea floor at the H20 site as representative of the North Pacific central gyre? 2) What responses are elicited in the epibenthic megafauna, as a proxy for benthic community activity, by the quality and quantity of particulate matter arriving on the sea floor on time scales from hours to years? A monitoring system will be attached consisting of a sedimentation sensor and digital time-lapse cameras, to monitor the flux of particulate matter as well as the activity of epibenthic megafauna in two 20m2 areas of the sea floor at the H20 site in real-time. Temporal changes in particle flux to the sea floor will be compared with the abundance and activity of the mobile epibenthic megafauna in the replicate photographic areas. A one-year test with real-time data acquisition and analyses combined with the ability to alter sampling frequencies from shore will provide the first long-term ecological monitoring of the abyssal sea floor to resolve the importance of food limitation on deep-sea benthic communities.