Understanding long-term community structure and population dynamics of large deep-sea fishes from De Soto Canyon to the West Florida Escarpment
Implementing Organization
Florida State University
Overview
DWH Project Funding
$1,288,986
Known Leveraged Funding
$0
Funding Organization
The U.S. Department of Treasury
Funding Program
The RESTORE Act Funds Bucket 5: Centers of Excellence Research Grant Program
Details
Project Category
Science
Project Actions
Environmental Research
Targeted Resources
Fish/Fish Habitats
Project Description
This project will repeat surveys during 2025-2028 to examine spatial and temporal patterns of abundance, biodiversity, and toxicological responses of large deep-sea fishes, sampling the same stations that were sampled 2011-2020. This would provide a 18-year time series for examining trends in biodiversity and the toxicological responses to the DwH spill at stations distributed from 60 km west to 240 km east of the wellhead and off the West Florida Escarpment (>400 km from the wellhead). Researchers will sequence entire genomes of sentinel species, economically important species and species that are endemic or of conservation concern. New techniques will be applied to reconstruct changes in population sizes over time scales that span tens of generations to tens of thousands of years, thus providing some insight into the long-term ecological structure, function and stability of deep-sea communities.
Contact
Grubbs, Dean850-697-2067
dgrubbs@bio.fsu.edu
Project Website
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