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R/DO-22
Plankton trophic dynamics in Chesapeake Bay: Models and budgets of carbon-nutrient coupling
Principal Investigator:
W. Michael KempStart/End Year:
1990Institution:
Horn Point Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental ScienceTopic(s):
- Ecosystems and Restoration
Description:
The objectives of this project are: to establish mass-balance constraints on planktonic trophuc fluxes through simulation studies and measures of net community metabolism (NCM); to calculate nutrient export/input for Bay regions and seasons in relation to NCM; to estimate particulate organic (POM) deposition for specific seasons and Bay regions; to relate spatial/temporal variations in NCM and POM deposition to changes in plankton trophic dynamics.
Funding Start Year
1990
Funding End Year
1990
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Featured Fellow
Nina Santos
Nina Santos is a Ph.D. student at the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. For her dissertation, she is focused on small shrimp-like crustaceans called mysids – an understudied yet important part of many estuarine and coastal food webs.
Featured Research Project
Developing a habitat model for mysids, an important link in Chesapeake Bay food webs
Mysids are important mesozooplankton prey for many species of fish in Chesapeake Bay and are an important link in transferring energy from lower to upper trophic levels. Mysids also serve as biological vectors for benthic-pelagic coupling due to their diel vertical migration and omnivorous prey-switching behavior, which makes mysids important regulators of food web architecture. Despite their central role in coastal food webs, surprisingly little is known about mysid ecology and dynamics in Chesapeake Bay.
