R/E-27-Santos

Strategic focus area:

Description:

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. This study proposes to develop a first-of-itskind mysid habitat model for Chesapeake Bay to understand how factors such as depth, temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen concentration affect mysid distribution and abundance in the Patuxent River, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay. This proposed work will leverage existing datasets as well as build on those datasets with targeted sampling. The proposed work addresses a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of Chesapeake Bay’s food web for an under-researched organism that occupies a central role in the ecology of the ecosystem. From an applied perspective, my work will be useful for regional ecosystem-based management, water quality, and fisheries applications. Upon completion of the proposed work, I will have: created a novel habitat model for mysids in the Chesapeake Bay region, generated spatially- and temporally-explicit estimates of mysid total abundance in the Patuxent River, used biomarkers to elucidate trophic mechanisms underlying benthic-pelagic decoupling in the presence of hypoxia, and developed a framework for exploring these patterns in other Chesapeake Bay tributaries.