Ocean Research Equipment for the Coral Reef Research Foundation

有了该项目资助的海洋设备，帕劳的珊瑚礁研究基金会将能够研究与珊瑚礁、鱼类产卵群和有特有水母的海洋湖泊有关的物理环境。多波束声纳测绘系统将创建帕劳外礁斜坡(300公里至200米深)整个周长的底图，从而更好地了解深层珊瑚礁群落。洋流剖面仪将跟踪珊瑚礁及其附近的水运动，这些信息可以帮助跟踪产卵后鱼卵和幼虫的去向。鱼类生活史的这一重要方面将有助于估计幼鱼在开阔海洋中度过幼体生活后的来源。CTD剖面仪将用于测量海洋和泻湖的温度和盐度如何随深度变化。在帕劳的海洋湖泊中，这些仪器还可以提供信息，导致有关气候变化的重要工作，其中来自湖泊的底部岩芯提供了过去气候的历史记录。所有这些仪器都用于测量海洋、泻湖和海洋湖泊的重要物理特征。总体而言，该项目将加强对高度多样化的热带海洋环境及其资源的了解，这些环境及其资源正受到气候变化和人类人口压力的越来越大的压力。该项目将购买1)用于水深测绘的多波束声纳系统，2)两台声学多普勒海流剖面仪(ADCP)和3)两台电导温度深度剖面仪。所有设备将由帕劳科罗尔珊瑚礁研究基金会(CRRF)的访问研究人员和工作人员使用(coralreefpalau.org)。多波束系统将用于绘制外坡珊瑚礁环境和深泻湖地区的地图，以利于对中层环境、珊瑚礁鱼类产卵群和海洋湖泊的地形进行广泛研究。目前的剖面将用于研究鱼类产卵群、鱼类漩涡和海洋湖泊水动力学，而CTDS将补充其他特定地点的数据收集。该设备将加强受珊瑚漂白(1998年、2010年)和水母种群崩溃(1999年、2016年)等重大事件刺激的长期数据收集工作。这项工作的广泛影响包括处理关于中游珊瑚礁可能是浅水(深度小于30米)珊瑚礁的“救生艇”的建议，并有助于超越目前正在辩论的相对简单的深海珊瑚礁避难所的考虑。深海珊瑚礁还保存着各种生物，可作为气候变化问题的替代品，包括海洋变暖和海平面上升，测绘将有助于划定这些生物的出生地。对发展中国家渔业和了解人类对珊瑚礁渔业的影响至关重要的珊瑚鱼产卵群的健康和命运，将以新的方式进行审查，以量化现有鱼类的位置和数量/大小。海洋湖泊调查将受益于对物理和生物动力学的更好了解。湖泊水深测量将推动海底沉积物取心位置的选择，这些位置保存着数千年的厄尔尼诺条件记录。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With the oceanographic equipment funded by this project, the Coral Reef Research Foundation in Palau will be able to examine the physical environment associated with coral reefs, fish spawning aggregations and marine lakes with endemic jellyfish. The multibeam sonar mapping system will allow the creation of bottom maps of the entire perimeter of Palau's outer reef slope (300 km) to 200 m depths, allowing a better understanding of deep coral reef communities. The ocean current profiler will track water movement on and adjacent to reefs, information that can help track where fish eggs and larvae go after spawning. This important aspect of the life history of fish will help to estimate where young fishes come from after spending their larval life in the open ocean. The CTD profiler will be used to measure how the temperature and salinity of the ocean and lagoon varies with depth. In Palau's marine lakes these instruments can also provide information leading to important work on climate change, where bottom cores from the lake provide a historical record of past climates. All of these instruments are used to measure important physical characteristics of the ocean, lagoon and marine lakes. Overall this project will improve the understanding of highly diverse tropical marine environments and their resources which are under increasing stress from climate change and human population pressure.The project will purchase 1) a multibeam sonar system for bathymetric mapping, 2) two Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) and 3) two Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) profilers. All equipment will be used by visiting researchers and staff at the Coral Reef Research Foundation (CRRF) in Koror, Palau (coralreefpalau.org). The multibeam system will be used to map outer slope reef environments and deep lagoon areas to benefit broad studies of mesophotic environments, topography of reef fish spawning aggregations, and marine lakes. The current profiles will be used to study fish spawning aggregations, fish vortices, and marine lake hydrodynamics while the CTDs will complement other location specific data collection. The equipment will enhance long-term data collection efforts stimulated by major events such as coral bleaching (1998, 2010) and jellyfish population crashes (1999, 2016). Broad impacts of the work include addressing the suggestion that mesophotic coral reefs are possible "lifeboats" for shallow water (less than 30 m depth) coral reefs, and help move beyond the relatively simple considerations of deep reef refugia presently being debated. Deep reefs also hold various organisms usable as proxies for questions of climate change, including ocean warming and sea level rise, and mapping will help delineate where such organisms occur. The health and fate of reef fish spawning aggregations, critical for fisheries in developing countries and understanding human impacts on reef fisheries, will be examined in new ways to quantify the locations and number/sizes of fish present. Marine lake investigations will benefit from improved understanding of the physical and biological dynamics. Surveys of lake bathymetry will drive selection of locations for sediment coring of their bottoms, which hold multi-thousand year records of El Nino conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.