marine aggregates and their importance as a food source to bentic suspension-feeders

有许多类型的海洋动物生活在浅海地区的海底，依靠悬浮在水柱中的颗粒作为食物来源。这些底栖动物是当地生态系统的重要成员，因为它们过滤漂浮在水柱中的颗粒，包括生物和沉积物等非生物颗粒。它们捕获水柱中的各种稀释颗粒并将其转化为肉。它们又常常被包括人类在内的其他人吃掉，使其中一些成为食物链的重要成员，成为当地渔业和水产养殖业的基础。这项拟议的研究旨在更好地了解哪些环境因素，特别是悬浮食物颗粒的数量和类型，影响食物能量的吸收和转化为身体组织。 了解这一点很重要，因为生长率将决定个体被招募到渔业的速度或从水产养殖场收获的速度。已知这些颗粒中的一些粘在一起并形成更大的聚集体或海洋雪。这些聚集体在性质上非常脆弱，使得它们难以取样，我们真的不太了解它们作为食物来源的营养价值，或者事实上大多数底栖动物是否可以捕获或食用它们。长期以来，人们一直认为这些悬浮的聚集体代表了能量从水柱流向底部和食物链其他层面的重要环节，但几乎没有实验证据支持这一点。 这些微粒可能是海底的主要食物来源，对底栖物种的摄食策略、生长率和生殖周期有重大影响。本提案的目的是评估芬迪湾当地生境中脆弱的海洋雪的特征，我将在那里研究当地底栖物种捕获和食用这种鲜为人知的食物来源的能力。

There are many types of marine animals that live on the ocean floor in shallow coastal areas and rely on particles suspended in the water column as a food source. These bottom, or benthic, animals are important members of the local ecosystem because they filter particles floating in the water column, both living organisms and non-living particles such as sediments. They capture a variety of dilute particles in the water column and convert them into flesh. They in turn are often eaten by others, including man, making some of them important members of food chains and the basis for local fisheries and aquaculture operations. The proposed research looks to provide a better understanding as to which environmental factors, in particular the number and type of suspended food particles, influence the uptake of food energy and conversion to body tissue.  This is important to know because growth rates will determine how quickly individuals are recruited to a  fishery or how rapidly they can be harvested from an aquaculture site. Some of these particles are known to stick together and form larger aggregates or marine snow. These aggregates are very fragile in nature  making them difficult to sample and we really do not know much about their  nutritional value as a food sources or in fact whether most benthic animals can capture or eat them. It has long been thought that these suspended aggregates represent an important link in the flow of energy from the water column to the bottom and on to other levels of the food chains, however there is little experimental evidence to support this.  These particles could represent a major  food supply to the bottom of the ocean and have significant impacts on feeding strategies, growth rates and reproductive cycles of benthic species. The objectives of this proposal will be to assess the characteristics of fragile marine snow in the local Bay of Fundy habitats where I will be studying the ability of local benthic species to capture and eat this little known food source.