英文摘要: | Arctic ecosystems are warming at some of the fastest rates observed on earth. In particular, Arctic lakes are experiencing more frequent years of warmer and deeper surface water. However, the ability to detect and quantify ecosystem effects and specific biological responses to these climatic changes has been primarily limited to non-mechanistic modeled scenarios and observational studies in uncontrolled environments. These lakes provide subsistence harvest for native communities in the Arctic and it is important to understand how the level of sustainable harvests might change under scenarios of continued warming. This project will manipulate the temperature regime of selected Arctic lakes, observe the consequent changes of the lake ecosystem, and model these.
This project will contribute to STEM workforce development through provision of support for the training of graduate students at two institutions. It will also entrain undergraduate students into the research. Through a collaboration with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the principal investigators will provide outreach to Iñupiat high school students via the Kaktovik Science Camp and to Iñupiat K-12 students via the Arctic Village Science Camp Goonzhii. They will contribute to the management of natural resources by presentations through established collaborations with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, as well as through an interactive seminar series with local communities, e.g. the North Slope Borough of Alaska.
This project will complete a multi-year, whole-lake warming manipulation, to quantify the effects of future climate change on lake ecosystems in the Arctic. In addition, regional climate and lake models will be coupled with biotic responses to better understand the sensitivity of lakes to changing atmospheric conditions. The project is designed to answer: How will warmer lake temperatures and extended growing season alter (1) lake ice coverage and annual thermal regime; (2) abundance, activity, and diversity of primary and secondary producers; (3) fish vital rates, production, and dynamics; and (4) degree of carry-over across growing seasons and cumulative effects. Experimental results will be combined with long-term, archived data to inform a linked modeling system (coupled lake-climate model and integrated physical, climate, biological, and bioenergetic modeling) to answer: How will warmer lake temperatures and an extended growing season alter: (1) lake thermal regimes at regional scales, and (2) fish populations across lake types of the Arctic. This research will quantify lake thermal processes and lake-atmosphere feedbacks, provide more precise projections of lake horizontal and vertical temperature structures, and document and project lake biota and ecosystem responses to changes in lake thermal condition over large spatial scales and under different climate scenarios.
|