Collaborative Research: Food Limitation in the Deep Sea: A Test of a Paradigm using Long Time-Series Photographic Monitoring with Real-Time data Acquisition

斯克里普斯海洋学研究所和伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所的研究人员将合作开展一个项目，以解决海洋生态学中的一个主要范例：来自远洋的食物供应与深海底栖生物群落动态之间的耦合。如果没有适当的长时间序列测量，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、电池运行仪器的寿命、无法实时收集/分析数据和改变采样频率以及无法实时纠正或补偿故障的限制。pi将利用位于北太平洋中部5000米深处的夏威夷2号天文台（H20）建立一个长期的海底观测点。H2O是一个海底观测系统的原型，它通过海底电话线从岸上提供电力，实时获取数据并进行控制，从而使深海的长期监测成为可能。通过将一套传感器插入水中，pi将研究暂时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。本文将探讨以下问题：1)以北太平洋中央环流为代表的H20站点到达海底的下沉颗粒物的质量和数量是多少？2)到达海底的颗粒物质的质量和数量在小时到年的时间尺度上引起了底栖巨型动物的什么反应，作为底栖生物群落活动的代表？监测系统将由沉降传感器和数字延时相机组成，用于实时监测H20站点两个20平方米的海底区域的颗粒物质通量和底栖巨型动物的活动。将把颗粒通量的时间变化与复制摄影区内活动的巨型底栖动物的丰度和活动进行比较。一项为期一年的实时数据采集和分析测试，结合改变海岸采样频率的能力，将提供对深海海底的第一次长期生态监测，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.