Davis, Cabell
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Abstract The main objective of this project is to model the biological-physical mechanisms controlling the development of 3D spatial patterns of lower food web (NPZD) and dominant copepod species on GB/GOM over time scales of days to years during the GLOBEC period (1995-1999). This modeling effort will examine how local-dynamics and external physical forcing impact the abundance of the target species. The study will determine the relative importance of food-limitation, predation, and advection. The FVCOM will be used together with GLOBEC and other data sets, to conduct targeted numerical experiments examining such factors as sustainability of resident populations (in the absence of immigration), the effects of intrusions of Labrador water from the slope and Scotian Shelf, and scenarios of catastrophic warming. The general hypothesis of the study is that the characteristic distributional patterns of the dominant copepod species are determined by the interaction of their characteristic life-histories and the biological and physical environment. A state-of-the-art unstructured-grid model, FVCOM, driven by tides and meteorological forcings, provides the 3D physical fields and incorporates biological components including lower trophic level food web (NPZD), stage-structured copepod species models, and a Lagrangian tracking tool for incorporation of individual-based models of selected species. Thus, inputs to the model include local dynamics and large scale forcing, and distributions of nutrients, phytoplankton, and copepod species. The model outputs 3D distributions of temperature, salinity, currents, nutrients, phytoplankton, microzooplankton, and copepod species at time steps of minutes over the 1995-1999 GLOBEC field study. The website for this project can be found here. |