Global patterns of epipelagic gelatinous zooplankton biomass

There is concern that overfishing may lead to a proliferation of jellyfish through a process known as fishing down the food web. However, there has been no global synthesis of patterns of gelatinous zooplankton biomass (GZB), an important first step in determining any future trends. A meta-analysis...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: M Lilley, S Beggs, T Doyle, V Hobson, K Stromberg, Graeme Hays
Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2011
Subjects:
Uncategorized
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Marine & Freshwater Biology
CTENOPHORE MNEMIOPSIS-LEIDYI
NORTH-ATLANTIC OSCILLATION
MARINE FOOD WEBS
AURELIA-AURITA
JELLYFISH BLOOMS
BLACK-SEA
COMMON JELLYFISH
CHESAPEAKE-BAY
CLIMATE-CHANGE
REGIME SHIFTS
North Atlantic
North Atlantic oscillation
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30058304
https://figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Global_patterns_of_epipelagic_gelatinous_zooplankton_biomass/20953798
Description
Summary:There is concern that overfishing may lead to a proliferation of jellyfish through a process known as fishing down the food web. However, there has been no global synthesis of patterns of gelatinous zooplankton biomass (GZB), an important first step in determining any future trends. A meta-analysis of epipelagic-GZB patterns was undertaken, encompassing 58 locations on a global scale, and spanning the years 1967–2009. Epipelagic-GZB decreased strongly with increasing total water column depth (r 2 = 0.543, p < 0.001, n = 58): in shallow (<50 m) coastal waters, epipelagic-GZB was typically 742× the levels in deep ocean (>2,000 m) sites. However, the ratio of GZB to primary productivity showed high values across a range of depths, i.e. this measure of the relative abundance of gelatinous zooplankton did not co-vary with depth.

Similar Items