Exploring the growth of deep-sea bivalves in areas of potential sea-floor mining

大陆架以外的海底区域构成了地球上最大的生态系统之一。然而，人们对深海底栖生物知之甚少，这在很大程度上是因为那里的环境相对难以接近。我们所知道的是，深海生物群落是多样化的，它们的组成是异质的，既有通才生物，也有专才生物，比如那些生活在特别困难的地方的生物，比如热液喷口。大多数深海动物的生活史都是神秘的。例如，对大多数物种的生长率缺乏了解，对这些生长率可能受到遥远的外部因素（如光带生产力和潮汐效应）影响的程度也缺乏了解。这些生命史问题并不深奥，因为深海环境正越来越多地受到人类活动的影响，这些影响包括间接地通过气候系统的变化，以及直接地通过目前和计划中的海洋资源开发。海底多金属结核和热液喷口矿床是未来潜在的金属资源，多金属结核含锰、镍、钴，喷口矿床含铜、铅、锌、银、金等微量金属。这些潜在资源主要存在于国家专属经济区之外和深水（数千米）中，因此在开发之前需要解决一些重大问题，有些纯粹是后勤问题（例如，开发新的采矿机械），还有一些与政策有关的问题。在专属经济区之外，所有的海底资源都是由国际海底管理局（International Seabed Authority）许可的，这首先需要对采矿的生态影响进行充分的调查，然后才能进行开采。目前，这类工作正在若干不同国家许可的若干地区（例如太平洋中部的克拉里昂-克利珀顿区）由各种承包商进行。这些海底金属资源的商业开采将影响深海环境，由于普遍缺乏关于深海动物的数据，关于开采后生态恢复的持续时间或潜在隔离区的范围的问题受到阻碍。该项目将为各种深海环境下双壳类生物的生长提供重要的新信息，主要是热液喷口和多金属结核油田，这些都是即将进行商业开发的目标。材料将来自现有的收藏，但也有可能加入一个研究巡航，从克拉里昂-克利珀顿区结核领域收集新的标本。既定的年代成像和地球化学技术将用于较大的双壳类标本，但是，许多深海双壳类的小而易碎的壳将需要修改一些现有的方法，并有可能酌情发展新的方法。分析结果的数学处理（如光谱分析）将是研究的重要组成部分。

The area of seabed beyond the continental shelves makes up one of the largest of the Earth's ecosystems. However, the deep-sea benthos is very poorly understood, in large part because the relative inaccessibility of the environment. What is known is that deep-sea communities are diverse, heterogeneous in their composition and contain both generalist and specialist organisms, such as those living in particularly challenging locations, like hydrothermal vents. The life histories of most deep-sea animals are enigmatic. For example, knowledge of growth rates for most species is lacking, as is the extent to which these rates might be influenced by distant external factors, such as photic zone productivity and tidal effects. These life history questions are not esoteric because the deep-sea environment is being increasingly impacted by human activities, both indirectly through changes in the climate system, and directly through current and planned exploitation of marine resources. Seafloor polymetallic nodules and hydrothermal vent deposits are a potential future metals resource, of manganese, nickel and cobalt for polymetallic nodules, and copper, lead, zinc, silver, gold and other trace metals for vent deposits. These potential resources exist largely outside of country exclusive economic zones (EEZs), and in deep water (thousands of metres), so there are major issues that need to be solved before they can be exploited, some purely logistical (e.g., development of novel mining machinery), and some policy related. Outside of EEZs all seafloor resources are licenced by the International Seabed Authority, and this first requires adequate investigation of the ecological impacts of mining before this can go ahead. Currently this type of work is being undertaken by various contractors in a number of areas (e.g., the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the central Pacific) licenced to a number of different countries.Commercial extraction of these seafloor metal resources will impact the deep-sea environment, and questions about the duration of post-mining ecological recovery or the extent of potential set-aside areas are hampered by a general lack of data about deep-sea animals. The project will provide essential new information about the growth of bivalves from a variety of deep-sea environmental settings, principally hydrothermal vents and polymetallic nodule fields, which are targeted for imminent commercial exploitation. Material will come from existing collections, but there is the potential to join a research cruise to collect new specimens from the Clarion-Clipperton Zone nodule fields. Established sclerochronological imaging and geochemical techniques will be used on larger bivalve specimens, however, the small, fragile shells of many deep-sea bivalves will necessitate the modification of some existing methodologies, with the potential to develop new approaches, as appropriate. Mathematical processing (e.g. spectral analysis) of analytical results will be an essential component of the research.