Vertical day-night distribution of the salp Soestia zonaria in the temperate Northeast Atlantic and the Southwest Pacific over the Chatham Rise

• Main Authors: Lüskow, Florian, Bahl, Alexis A, Décima, Moira, Steinberg, Deborah K, Pakhomov, Evgeny A
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2023
• Subjects: 61TG20151203; Calculated; Chatham Rise; Cruise/expedition; DATE/TIME; DEPTH; water; bottom/maximum; top/minimum; DVM; Event label; EXPORTS_P6; EXPORTS_P7; EXPORTS_P8; EXPORTS_P9; Fraction; Gear; Intraspecific variability; LATITUDE; Layer thickness; LONGITUDE; Method comment; MOC1; MOCNESS opening/closing plankton net 1 sqm; Net ID; North Atlantic Ocean; Number of specimens; Ocean and sea region; Pair ID; Pelagic tunicate; RULER; Ruler stick; Salp Particle expOrt and Ocean Production (SalpPOOP); Soestia zonaria; blastozooid/oozooid ratio; development stage; embryos; life stage; oral-atrial length; total length; North Atlantic; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.962766; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.962766

Although the oceanic widespread pelagic tunicate Soestia zonaria has been studied for more than a century, little ecological information exists. Soestia primarily occurs in tropical to warm-temperate regions. Soestia specimens were collected between 2015 and 2021 during three research expeditions (EXPORTS cruise to the Northeast Atlantic and TAN1516 and TAN1810 over the Chatham Rise, New Zealand) using MOCNESS-1 net and large midwater trawl with maximum sampling depths of 1000 m. More than 530 Soestia specimens (oral-atrial length: 4–68 mm) were analysed for their vertical distribution, i.e., weighted mean depths (WMD) during the day and night, and migration distance.