Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

The Effect of the North Atlantic Subpolar Front as a Boundary in Pelagic Biogeography Decreases with Increasing Depth and Organism Size

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2015

Publication Title

Progress in Oceanography

ISSN

0079-6611

Volume

138

Issue/No.

Part A

First Page

105

Last Page

115

Abstract

Broad-scale patterns in the distribution of deep-sea pelagic species and communities are poorly known. An important question is whether biogeographic boundaries identified from surface features are important in the deep mesopelagic and bathypelagic. We present community analyses of discrete-depth samples of mesozooplankton and micronekton to full-ocean depth collected in the area where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is crossed by the Subpolar Front. The results show that the distributional discontinuity associated with the front, which is strong near the surface, decreases with increasing depth. Both the frontal separation near the surface and the community convergence at increasing depths were clearer for mesozooplankton than for micronekton.

Comments

©2015 Elsevier Ltd.

Additional Comments

Census of Marine Life field project #: MAR-ECO 2001-2010; NERC Consortium grant #: ECOMAR; NSF grant #: OCE 0623551

ORCID ID

0000-0002-5280-7071

DOI

10.1016/j.pocean.2015.08.006

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