Twilight Zone Of West Pacific: Ecosystem Research

TOWER will fill knowledge gap and deliver new knowledge of ecosystem in the twilight zone of the Western Pacific Ocean. With invention of new sampling and observation equipment, this project will obtain high-quality in situ time-course samples and images of organisms in different size scales and carry out long-term monitoring of water current and geochemical factors. This requires tight cooperation between our engineers and scientists to fulfil the goal of TOWER to achieve world class modelling and quantification of vertical element cycles and in the twilight zone. The South China Sea (SCS) as a part of the Western Pacific Ocean is under high impacts of open oceans and human activities. TOWER will put efforts in understanding the dynamics and formation of SCS twilight ecosystem. This will help policy makers to estimate the ecological crisis in SCS under unlimited discharge of wastes and extensive fishery resource harvesting.