Copyright © The Oceanographic Society of Japan. Zooplankton Distribution and Dynamics in a North Pacific Eddy of Coastal Origin: I. Transport and Loss of Continental Margin Species
Zooplankton from coastal/continental margin environments can be transported long distances seaward into the subarctic North Pacific by the large (100–200 km diam-eter) anticyclonic eddies that form annually in late winter along the eastern margin of the Alaska Gyre. One recurrent region for eddy for...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2002
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.625.3390 http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/JO/pdf/5805/58050725.pdf |
| Summary: | Zooplankton from coastal/continental margin environments can be transported long distances seaward into the subarctic North Pacific by the large (100–200 km diam-eter) anticyclonic eddies that form annually in late winter along the eastern margin of the Alaska Gyre. One recurrent region for eddy formation is off the southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands (near 52°N 132°W). Eddies from this source region (termed ‘Haida eddies’) propagate westward into open ocean waters during the sub-sequent 1–3 years, often to about 140°W, occasionally to mid gyre. Each eddy con-tains a core of anomalously low density water, and produces an upward doming of the sea surface detectable by satellite altimetry, thereby aiding repeated ship-based sam-pling. The zooplankton community in the eddies is a mixture between shelf/slope spe-cies (transported from the nearshore formation region) and subarctic oceanic species (which colonize the eddy from the sides and below). This paper reports sequential observations (late winter, early summer and fall seasons of 2000, and early summer and fall of 2001) of the abundance and distribution of continental-margin zooplankton in the Haida eddies that formed in late winters of 2000 and 2001. Shelf-origin species |
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