The role of water mass advection in staging of the Southern Ocean Salpa thompsoni populations

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Henschke, Natasha, Espinasse, Boris, Stock, Charles A., Liu, Xiao, Barrier, Nicolas, Pakhomov, Evgeny A.
• Other Authors: University of British Columbia (UBC), The Arctic University of Norway Tromsø, Norway (UiT), NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), MARine Biodiversity Exploitation and Conservation - MARBEC (UMR MARBEC ), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Montpellier (UM)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Ecology; Ocean sciences; Climate sciences; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-04144474; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-34231-7

WOS:000984749800027 Salpa thompsoni is an important grazer in the Southern Ocean. Their abundance in the western Antarctic Peninsula is highly variable, varying by up to 5000-fold inter-annually. Here, we use a particle-tracking model to simulate the potential dispersal of salp populations from a source location in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) to the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (PAL LTER) study area. Tracking simulations are run from 1998 to 2015, and compared against both a stationary salp population model simulated at the PAL LTER study area and observations from the PAL LTER program. The tracking simulation was able to recreate closely the long-term trend and the higher abundances at the slope stations. The higher abundances observed at slope stations are likely due to the advection of salp populations from a source location in the ACC, highlighting the significant role of water mass circulation in the distribution and abundance of Southern Ocean salp populations.