Fishes are the dominant vertebrates in the ocean, yet we know little of their contribution to carbon export flux at regional to global scales. We synthesize the existing information on fish-based carbon flux in coastal and pelagic waters, identify gaps and challenges in measuring this flux and approaches to address them, and recommend research priorities. Based on our synthesis of passive (fecal pellet sinking) and active (migratory) flux of fishes, we estimated that fishes contribute an average (± standard deviation) of about 16.1% (± 13%) to total carbon flux out of the euphotic zone. Using the mean value of model-generated global carbon flux estimates, this equates to an annual flux of 1.5 ± 1.2 Pg C yr⁻¹. High variability in estimations of the fish-based contribution to total carbon flux among previous field studies and reported here highlight significant methodological variations and observational gaps in our present knowledge. Community-adopted methodological standards, improved and more frequent measurements of biomass and passive and active fluxes of fishes, and stronger linkages between observations and models will decrease uncertainty, increase our confidence in the estimation of fish-based carbon flux, and enable identification of controlling factors to account for spatial and temporal variability. Better constraints on this key component of the biological pump will provide a baseline for understanding how ongoing climate change and harvest will affect the role fishes play in carbon flux.

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更好地了解鱼类对海洋碳通量的贡献

鱼是海洋中的主要脊椎动物，但是我们不知道它们对区域乃至全球尺度的碳出口通量的贡献。我们综合了有关沿海和中上层鱼类水基碳通量的现有信息，确定了测量这种通量的差距和挑战以及解决这些问题的方法，并提出了研究重点。根据我们的被动（粪便颗粒沉没）和主动（迁移）鱼通量的合成，我们估计鱼对离开富营养区的总碳通量贡献约16.1％（±13％）的平均值（±标准偏差）。 。使用模型生成的全球碳通量估计值的平均值，这相当于年均通量为1.5±1.2 Pg C yr ^-1。在以前的田间研究中，以鱼为基础对总碳通量贡献的估算值存在很大差异，在这里我们发现，这凸显了重大的方法学差异和观测的空白。社区采用的方法标准，改进的和更频繁的鱼类生物量以及被动和主动通量测量方法，以及观测值与模型之间更紧密的联系将减少不确定性，增加我们对鱼类碳通量估计的信心，并能够确定控制措施时空变异性的因素。对生物泵这一关键组成部分的更好约束将为了解持续的气候变化和收获将如何影响鱼类在碳通量中的作用提供基准。