BEST- Assessment of mesozooplankton population and biomass in the eastern Bering Sea: supplemental request to address a BEST-BSIERP data gap

考虑到气候变化对白令海东部生态系统的潜在影响，白令海生态系统研究（BEST）对形成该生态系统的中浮游动物种群的物种组成、丰度和生物量进行了研究，并对种群趋势进行了估计。在这三个最佳的野外季节里，每年有两次航行，每次航行，这些浮游生物研究所将从白令海东部收集和处理大约260个浮游动物样本，分析数据，并将结果发表在同行评审的期刊上。然而，在实地收集期间，确定需要额外的信息，以确保可靠的结果。为了满足这些需求，BEST邮轮每年额外收集200个样本。该奖项资助这些样品的处理。BEST生态系统研究的整个理论基础是基于东白令海生态系统在气候影响下发生变化的基本假设。BEST研究工作的目标是确定和量化气候与生态系统响应之间的机制联系。生态系统通过改变其组成种群的丰度、生物量和物种组成来响应气候强迫的变化。因此，研究的核心要求是收集和处理足够数量的样本，以在研究期间可靠地确定系统的状态，估计变化的方向或幅度，如果有的话，验证或反驳有关变化的假设，并充分验证或参数化其他项目参与者生成的较低营养水平模型。每年处理200个额外的样本将大大提高我们在BEST计划期间检测浮游动物种群统计显著变化的能力，从而有助于满足上述要求。

Concern about the potential impact of climate change on the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem prompted a study of the species composition, abundance and biomass of the mesozooplankton populations forming the ecosystem and estimation of population trends as part of the Bering Sea Ecosystem Study (BEST). The PIs have been previously funded to collect and process approximately 260 zooplankton samples from the eastern Bering Sea during each of two cruises per year for the three BEST field seasons, to analyze the data, and to publish the results in peer-reviewed journals. However, during field collection, the need for additional information was identified in order to ensure robust results. In response to these needs, an additional 200 samples per year were collected during the BEST cruises. This award funds the processing of those samples.The entire rational of the BEST ecosystem study is based on the fundamental hypothesis that the eastern Bering Sea ecosystem is changing under the influence of climate. The goal of the BEST research effort is to identify and quantify mechanistic links between climate and the ecosystem response. An ecosystem responds to changes in climate forcing by altering the abundance, biomass and species composition of its constituent populations. Therefore, a central requirement of the research is to collect and process a sufficient number of samples to determine robustly the state of the system during the study, estimate the direction or magnitude of change, if any, to validate or refute hypotheses concerning change, and to adequately validate or parameterize the lower trophic level models generated by other program participants. Processing of the 200 extra samples per year will substantially improve our ability to detect statistically significant changes in zooplankton populations during the BEST program, thus helping to address the above requirements.