THE EFFECT OF THE CIRCULATION OF WATER ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE CALANOID COMMUNITY IN THE GULF OF MAINE'.

• Main Author: Alfred C. Redfield
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Beale; Lofoten; Norwegian Sea; Calanus finmarchicus
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.546.804; http://www.biolbull.org/content/80/1/86.full.pdf

Damas ( 1905) has pointed out that the flow of water tends to dis sipate local populations of pelagic organisms, and that the permanence of breeding stocks may be maintained by the existence of eddies. His predictions have been strikingly confirmed by hydrographic observations in the Norwegian Sea (Sømme, 1933). Along the margins of the Gulf of Maine the permanence of the stock of Sagitta elegans is correlated with the stability of the hydrographic conditions which exist in different regions (Redfield and Beale, 1940). Walford (1938) has indicated the importance of fluctuations in the circulation on Georges Bank to the fate of haddock eggs spawned in that region. These studies and that of the author (1939) on the population of Liniacina retroversa empha size the rapidity with which currents move pelagic organisms about within the Gulf. It becomes a problem whether the community of the basin of the Gulf is truly endemic, and by what mechanism a breeding stock is maintained within the Gulf. SØmme (1934) has discussed this question in regard to the copepod population of the Lofoten area. Bigelow (1926), who has described the zoöplankton of the Gulf in great detail, considers that the species which form the bulk of the pelagic population are endemic in origin, breeding with sufficient regu larity and abundance to maintain the local stock by local reproduction. From its dominating member, Calanus finmarchicus, he has referred to the population as the calanoid community. We have measured the catches taken in the Gulf during a year round survey and will attempt to explain the distribution of numerical abundance in terms of the pattern of currents obtained during the period of observation. DATA The data employed in the present study were collected in the course of cruises made by the research vessel “¿Atlantis―during the years of