BE/CBC: The Vertical Organization of Energy, Carbon, and Nutrient Cycles in an Ultraoligotrophic Ecosystem: A Workshop on Crater Lake, Oregon

在环境生物复杂性倡议的支持下，该奖项将支持在俄勒冈州立大学举行的一次会议，该会议旨在研究俄勒冈州火山口湖的能量、碳和营养循环的垂直组织。这个超少营养湖泊的不同寻常的特性导致了生态系统的垂直分层，使人联想到远洋海洋系统。火山口湖为研究生物过程、元素循环和环境物理的耦合提供了一个天然的实验室。具体来说，该奖项将为研讨会提供一些组织支持，并为有经验的和新的研究人员以及学生提供旅行和生活支持，以参与综合火山口湖和营养循环的最新科学理解的演讲和讨论。讨论还将涉及未来如何最好地开展工作，以增加我们对这类生态系统的了解。火山口湖是美国最深的湖泊（即590米），是一个封闭的盆地火山口湖，形成于约7700年前马扎马火山爆发后。这个湖位于俄勒冈州中南部喀斯喀特山脉，海拔1882米，周围是陡峭的火山口墙，有一个很小的分水岭。没有主要的入口流，也没有表面出口。外部流入湖泊的营养物质很少，主要是大气降水和干沉积。因此，这个湖是极度贫营养化的，是地球上最清澈的水体之一。尽管深度很大，但垂直混合速度相对较快（即3-5年），循环氮从低铵离子向上混合，这是这种限制性养分的最大来源。火山口湖是美国最重要的国家公园之一，它提供了一个独特的环境，直接吸引公众参与，展示了复杂的水生生态系统的功能和跨学科领域研究的方法。它为研究大气强迫和地表水文与水生生态系统生物地球化学循环的相互作用提供了独特的资源。

This award will support, under the aegis of the Biocomplexity in the Environment initiative, a conference at Oregon State University to examine the vertical organization of energy, carbon, and nutrient cycles in Crater Lake, Oregon. The unusual properties of this ultra-oligotrophic lake result in the vertical stratification of the ecosystem reminiscent of pelagic marine systems. Crater Lake provides a natural laboratory to study the coupling of biological processes, element cycles, and the physics of the environment.Specifically, the award will provide some organizational support for the workshop and travel and subsistence support for experienced and new investigators, as well as students, to participate in presentations and discussions that synthesize the latest scientific understanding of Crater Lake and nutrient cycling. Discussions will also involve how best to proceed in the future to increase our knowledge of such ecosystems. Crater Lake, the deepest lake in the United States (i.e., 590 m), is a closed-basin caldera lake formed after the explosive eruption of Mt. Mazama, ~7700 years ago. The lake, which rests at an elevation of 1882 meters in the Cascade Mountains of south central Oregon, is surrounded by steep caldera walls and has a very small watershed. There are no major inlet streams and no surface outlet. External inflows of nutrients to the lake are low and dominated by precipitation and dry deposition from the atmosphere. Thus, the lake is ultra-oligotrophic and one of the clearest bodies of water on the earth. In spite of its great depth, vertical mixing is relatively rapid (i.e., 3-5 years) and recycled nitrogen is mixed upwards from the hypolimnion representing the largest source of this limiting nutrient.Crater Lake is the centerpiece of one of the premier National Parks in the United States and it provides a unique setting to directly engage the public with compelling educational experiences demonstrating the function of complex aquatic ecosystems and the methods of interdisciplinary field research. It offers a unique resource for the study of the interaction of atmospheric forcing and land surface hydrology with biogeochemical cycles in aquatic ecosystems.