The spatial pattern of organisms within pelagic marine environments is of significant ecological importance, and this is particularly true for larval fishes. Patchy prey and predator environments should lead to variation in predator-prey interactions, and thus to variations in larval fish growth and survival. These have proven very difficult to resolve in nature, due in large part to the broad range of spatial scales involved and technological challenges with adequately sampling the various processes simultaneously. This study will use new technology (In Situ Ichthyoplankton Imaging System - ISIIS) to simultaneously measure the fine-scale distribution of larval fishes in relation to their prey, their planktonic predators, and the physical environment of the Straits of Florida. This will be combined with targeted fine-scale net sampling and analyses of individual recent daily larval growth. By sampling a series of water masses at very high resolution, this study will address specific hypotheses concerning: i) the drivers of aggregations and patchiness, and ii) the biological consequences of predator-prey interactions at fine scales.
Intellectual Merit : The primary intellectual merit of the study is the unprecedented examination of plankton processes at scales of relevance to biological interactions among larval fishes, their prey, and their predators. This field study will further our understanding of the predator-prey interactions contributing to spatially explicit larval growth and mortality patterns. The focus on subtropical planktonic food webs will enhance scientific knowledge of these understudied pelagic ecosystems and provide valuable data for comparative analyses with pelagic food web dynamics at higher latitudes. A deeper understanding of pelagic planktonic ecosystems over a range of spatial and temporal scales is increasingly important as the oceans undergo major environmental changes. Substantial increases in the relative dominance of gelatinous organisms, for example, have the potential to cause major shifts in pelagic food webs. A better understanding of the fine-scale interactions of such food webs will help society anticipate and respond to the consequences of such changes.
Broader Impacts : The project will involve traditional education and training approaches, as well as several non-traditional efforts to extend the broader impact of the study. The study will train undergraduate and graduate students and a post-doctoral fellow, with a focus on interdisciplinary research, integrating biological and physical oceanography with an added emphasis on image analysis. Mentoring will include a focus on improvement in scientific communication and outreach to under-represented populations in public schools. A unique effort to engage a broad audience will draw on a partnership with Citizen Science Alliance (CSA) by incorporating ISIIS imagery from this study into a Zooniverse "Window on Plankton" web-based project, which will use volunteer citizen scientists to help analyze the extensive imagery database generated during the study. Finally, this project will provide advanced image analysis capabilities to the plankton science community, as well as a permanent, complete digital library of positively identified, geo-referenced data on plankton and larval distribution.
