| Popis: |
The coastal shelf seas are a vitally important human resource for numerous ecosystem services, including food, carbonstorage, biodiversity, energy, and livelihoods. These highly dynamic regions are under a wide range of stresses, andas such future management requires appropriate monitoring measures. A key metric to understanding and predicting future ecosystem change are the rates of biological production. Assessingthe variability in production at appropriate temporal and spatial scales is essential to accurately determine the fateof carbon, and ecosystem health in these regions. Using high frequency data from a fleet of instrumented submersible gliders, we calculate oxygen based net communityproduction for an 18-month period in the central North Sea; a productivity hotspot and challenging environment forlong term monitoring with autonomous vehicles.From these data we determine an annual depth integrated carbon budget, and we observe both the interannual andseasonal changes in production. We compare these net community production estimates to the PAR and chlorophyll fluorescence based net primaryproduction estimates using the same glider fleet and supported by satellite earth observations. These observations and analysis are part of the AlterEco project, which seeks to demonstrate a novel monitoringframework to deliver improved understanding of key shelf sea ecosystem drivers. |
