U.S.-Brazil Cooperative Research: Trophic Role of Zooplankton on the Brazilian Continental Shelf

University Of Connecticut, Storrs CT

Investigators

Abstract

This Americas Program award will support a US-Brazil research project between Drs. George B. McManus and Hans G. Dam, University of Connecticut, and Dr. Rubens M. Lopes at the State University of Santa Cruz in Brazil. The goal of the project is to investigate the trophic role of zooplankton on the Brazilian continental shelf, and in particular the effect of ecosystem forcing on biological structure and trophic relationships within the plankton. In this project the physical mechanisms that control the seasonal intrusion of the South Atlantic Central Water (SACW) onto the continental shelf of the Southern Brazilian Bight will be studied, and its impact on the biological processes of the region's ecosystem will be evaluated. It is hypothesized that intrusions of the nutrient-rich SACW onto the shelf are partly responsible for the high fisheries yield as well as for some of the year-to-year fluctuations in fish stocks. The linkages between nutrient-input events and fish production are made though micro- and metazoan zooplankton. This research will fill a gap in the knowledge of the structure and function of these zooplankton and of the interactions between them. It will combine the strengths of the Brazilian researchers in taxonomy and descriptive ecology with those of U.S. scientists in experimental process studies.