Tracing Carbon Flow in Estuarine Systems: A Case Study in Apalachicola Bay Florida

该提案旨在评估阿巴拉契科拉湾的碳循环，阿巴拉契科拉湾是一个位于墨西哥湾东北部的浅沙洲亚热带河口。一个由地球化学家、生态学家、分子生物学家和建模者组成的跨学科协作团队将整合他们的技能和专业领域，详细描述阿巴拉契科拉湾河口内碳的来源、转化和命运。该提案的一个重要重点是培训研究生和博士后研究员进行碳循环的多学科研究，并将从这项研究和其他研究中获得的知识传达给课堂上的学生，使他们成为更好的教师和导师。河口大量溶解的有机碳库、微生物循环、细菌群落结构和整体营养动态。这项工作产生的数据将促进对从阿巴拉契科拉湾到墨西哥湾沿海沃茨的碳通量的极大改善的理解，并最终提供关于阿巴拉契科拉湾的碳循环如何与沿海碳通量的既定估计相吻合的见解。除了通过直接参与实地和实验室活动对研究生和本科生进行培训外，该项目的成果和范围也将发展成为一个教学模块.该模块的开发将是PI、高级科学家和研究生三个PI的合作努力，以说明通过河口系统的碳流如何可能影响全球碳通量模型。

This proposal seeks to evaluate carbon cycling in Apalachicola Bay, a shallow bar-built sub-tropical estuary located in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. A collaborative and interdisciplinary team made up of biogeochemists, ecologists, molecular biologists, and modelers will integrate their skills and areas of expertise to characterize in detail the sources, transformations and fate of carbon within theApalachicola Bay estuary. An important emphasis of this proposal is the training of graduate students and postdoctoral associates in multidisplinary research on carbon cycling, and in communicating the knowledge gained from this and other research to students in the classroom making them better teachers and mentors.A collaborative interdisciplinary team will integrate their skills and expertise to characterize carbon cycling and its relationship to hydrologic processes, the bulk dissolved organic carbon pool in the estuary, the microbial loop, bacterial community structure, and overall trophic dynamics.Data generated from this work will promote a dramatically improved understanding of the carbon flux from Apalachicola Bay to Gulf of Mexico coastal waters, and ultimately provide insight as to how carbon cycling in Apalachicola Bay fits with established estimates of coastal carbon flux. In addition to the training of bothgraduate and undergraduate students through direct participation in field and laboratory based activities the results and the scope of this project will also be developed into ateaching module. The development of the module will be a collaborative effort by the PI's, senior scientists and graduate students three PI's to illustrate how carbon flow through estuarine systems can potentially impact models of global carbon flux.