The 18.6-year lunar nodal cycle may affect ecosystems on the Northwest Atlantic continental shelves

• Published in: Journal of Marine Systems
• Main Authors: Poitevin, Pierre, Lazure, Pascal, Roy, Virginie, Donnet, Sébastien, Chauvaud, Laurent
• Other Authors: Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Environnement Marin (LEMAR) (LEMAR), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer (IUEM), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire d'Océanographie Physique et Spatiale (LOPS), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Brest (UBO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut d'écologie et des sciences de l'environnement de Paris (iEES Paris ), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 (UPEC UP12)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE), Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), ANR-17-EURE-0015,ISBlue,Interdisciplinary Graduate School for the Blue planet(2017)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2022
• Subjects: Arctica islandica; Tides; Northwestern Atlantic continental shelf; Sclerochronology; Growth; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Northwest Atlantic
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-03779801; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmarsys.2022.103783

International audience As one of the foremost global forcings, tidal circulation exerts a pervasive influence on biological and physical processes occurring in the world's oceans on hourly to decadal time scales. This research identified the 18.6-year periodic variation in the lunar orbital plane within an annually resolved 140-year (1875 to 2015) shell growth master chronology measured from 21 live collected Arctica islandica, a bivalve known to be one of the longest lived non-colonial animals. The potential ecological implications of this result warranted detailed inventory of underlying physical processes. The absence of long-term in situ hydrological data for the bivalve's habitat was circumvented by the use of satellite data and numerical modeling which show that coastal regions of the Northwest Atlantic shelf clearly record diurnal tidal currents influenced by the 18.6-year nodal lunar cycle. The approach described here demonstrates that combining physical and biological data can help to identify subtle ecological processes over long time-scales for accurately disentangling the latter from variation introduced by anthropogenic climate change.