Collaborative Research: Mesozooplankton food webs in intermittent upwelling systems: An overlooked link in a productive ocean

该项目将研究加利福尼亚州北部洋流中的沿海海洋中浮游动物群落及其通过鱼类早期生命阶段的捕食。目标是了解这些捕食者-猎物之间的相互作用在该地区不同的海洋制度中是如何变化的，这些海洋制度在该地区的季节性变化。这项研究将使用一个结合净样本的非常高分辨率的成像系统来测量浮游动物群落内各种环境参数(例如温度、上升流的相对时间和强度)之间的营养相互作用。相机提供了关于各种浮游生物的精细数量和空间分布的详细信息，而净样本将为与饮食相关的分析提供生物样本。该项目将培养12名本科生和2名研究生以及1名博士后学者。研究小组将开发各种教育活动和产品，以促进更多地接触公众受众。来自该项目的浮游生物图像将用于建立全球浮游生物图像图书馆，这是一个开放获取的浮游生物图像存储库，将成为研究界的资源。研究人员将扩大浮游生物门户网站的可用图像，这是他们与公民科学联盟的Zooniverse合作开发的公共网站，邀请公民科学家参与从现场照片中对浮游生物进行分类。他们将与科学教育专家合作，将浮游生物门户亭纳入俄勒冈州立大学哈特菲尔德海洋科学中心(HMSC)游客中心的一个新的公开展览，该中心每年接待15万名各个年龄段的游客。重要的是，这项活动不仅将教育K-12及以上的人，而且将使研究人员能够研究什么因素激励公民科学家，什么特征是“重度用户”，以及如何支持和鼓励这些用户成为高级合作者角色。一位多媒体艺术家将加入研究巡航，作为新的海上艺术家计划的一部分。他们的作品将在hMSC游客中心和俄勒冈大学查尔斯顿海洋生物中心展出，一场大规模的巡回展将在俄勒冈州的大都市和服务不足的社区巡回演出。东部边界流是地球上生产力最高的海洋生态系统之一，支持着全球渔业的相当大比例，但关于非甲壳类浮游动物在通过上升的食物网转移生产方面的作用，仍有一些悬而未决的问题。这项研究将回答与中游动物联系相关的食物网动态、碳生产的来源以及不同陆架上升流系统中上层营养水平的后果等关键问题。不仅在主要东部边界洋流系统的过渡区目前食物网如何发挥作用方面存在知识差距，而且越来越多的证据表明这些系统正在发生变化。主要洋流的区域和全球变化，包括上升流强度，以及温度引起的物种范围的纬度变化，已经发生并预计将继续发生，这将对物种之间的相互作用产生重大影响，从而对食物网产生重大影响。了解这些相互作用并预测未来的变化与科学、社会和经济高度相关。研究人员计划使用高分辨率的原位浮游鱼群成像系统对俄勒冈州中部附近的加利福尼亚州北部洋流(间歇性上升流)和加利福尼亚州北部(持续上升流)的冬季和夏季进行采样，以获得对中游动物群落的准确描述：它们的丰度，以及水平和垂直空间分布，超过对比的上升流/下降流系统动力学。与此同时，他们计划收集深度离散的中游动物样本，以量化幼鱼和胶状浮游动物的季节性食物以及幼鱼特定于猎物的生长率。对中游动物捕食者和猎物的稳定同位素分析将揭示新的和再生的产物在维持主要东部边界流等食物网方面的相对作用。

This project will examine the coastal ocean mesozooplankton community and their predation by early life stages of fish in the northern California Current. The goal is to understand how these predator-prey interactions change during different oceanographic regimes that vary seasonally in the region. This study will use a very high-resolution imaging system coupled with net samples to measure trophic interactions within the zooplankton community across a range of environmental parameters (e.g., temperature, relative timing and intensity of upwelling). The camera provides detailed information on the fine-scale abundance and spatial distributions of a wide diversity of plankton, while the net samples will provide biological samples for diet-related analyses. This project will train 12 undergraduate and two graduate students and one post-doctoral scholar. The research team will develop a variety of educational activities and products to facilitate greater outreach to public audiences. Plankton imagery from this project will be used to build the Global Plankton Imagery Library, an open-access repository for plankton imagery that will be a resource for the research community. The researchers will expand the imagery available in the Plankton Portal, a public website they developed in partnership with the Citizen Science Alliance's Zooniverse, that invites citizen scientists to participate in classifying plankton from field photographs. They will collaborate with Science Education specialists to include Plankton Portal kiosks in a new public exhibit at the Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) Visitor Center, which annually hosts 150,000 visitors of all ages. Importantly, this activity will not only educate K-12 and beyond, but will enable researchers to study what factors motivate citizen scientists, what characterizes "heavy-users", and how those users can be supported and encouraged into advanced collaborator roles. A multi-media artist will join the research cruises as part of the new Artist-At-Sea program. Their artwork will be displayed at the HMSC Visitor Center and University of Oregon's Charleston Marine Life Center and a scaled traveling show will tour Oregon metropolitan areas and underserved communities.Eastern boundary currents are among the most productive marine ecosystems on the planet and support a significant proportion of global fisheries, yet there are unanswered questions about the role of non-crustacean zooplankton in transferring production through upwelling food webs. This study will answer key questions about the food web dynamics associated with mesozooplankton linkages, sources of carbon production, and consequences for upper trophic levels in different shelf upwelling systems. Not only is there a knowledge gap in how the food web currently functions in transition areas of major eastern boundary current systems, but there is increasing evidence that these systems are changing. Regional and global shifts in major currents, including upwelling strength, together with temperature-induced latitudinal shifts in species ranges that are already occurring and predicted to continue will have major effects on interactions among species, and consequently, food webs. Understanding these interactions and predicting future changes is highly relevant to science, society, and economies. The researchers plan to sample the winter and summer seasons in the northern California Current off central Oregon (intermittent upwelling) and northern California (continuous upwelling) with the high resolution In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System to obtain an accurate description of mesozooplankton communities: their abundances, and horizontal and vertical spatial distributions, over contrasting upwelling/downwelling system dynamics. In parallel, they plan to collect depth-discrete mesozooplankton samples to quantify seasonal diets for larval fishes and gelatinous zooplankton and prey-specific growth rates of larval fishes. Stable isotope analysis of mesozooplankton predators and prey will reveal the relative role of new vs. regenerated production in sustaining food webs such major eastern boundary currents.