Quantifying the effect of variability in food quality on energy transfer and secondary production in a coastal marine food web

浮游动物是海洋食物网底层生产和更高营养水平（如鱼类）生产之间的关键环节。然而，到目前为止，海洋学家还无法在野外自然条件下对浮游动物的生长和生产进行常规量化。此外，导致浮游动物生产在空间和时间上变化的因素仍然知之甚少。尽管长期以来人们一直认为浮游动物可获得的食物量的变化会调节它们的产量，但支持这一说法的实地证据仍然令人惊讶地薄弱。最近，研究表明，当涉及到浮游动物生产时，食物质量的变化可能与食物总量的变化一样重要（甚至更重要）。然而，这类研究一般是在实验室条件下进行的，因此在实地发生这种影响的可能性仍未得到充分探索。

Zooplankton represent the key link between production at the base of marine food webs and production at higher trophic levels (e.g. fish). However, to date, oceanographers have been unable to routinely quantify zooplankton growth and production under natural conditions in the field. Moreover, the factors that cause zooplankton production to vary in space and time remain poorly understood. Although it has long been held that variations in the amount food available to zooplankton should regulate their production, field evidence supporting this claim remains surprisingly weak. More recently, studies have demonstrated that variations in food quality may be as important as (or even more important than) variations in total food abundance when it comes to zooplankton production. However, such studies have generally been conducted under laboratory conditions, and thus the potential for such effects to occur in the field remain poorly explored.