New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic
The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, is the largest teleost fish in the world. Despite being found in all oceans of the world, little is known about its abundance and factors driving its distribution. In this study we provide the first abundance estimates for sunfish in offshore waters in the northeast Atl...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:5435681 2023-05-15T17:41:01+02:00 New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic Breen, Patricia Cañadas, Ana Cadhla, Oliver Ó Mackey, Mick Scheidat, Meike Geelhoed, Steve C. V. Rogan, Emer Jessopp, Mark 2017-05-17 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435681/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435681/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2017 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 2017-05-21T00:29:03Z The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, is the largest teleost fish in the world. Despite being found in all oceans of the world, little is known about its abundance and factors driving its distribution. In this study we provide the first abundance estimates for sunfish in offshore waters in the northeast Atlantic and the first record of extensive sunfish presence in these waters year-round. Abundance estimates and predictive distributions for sunfish in approximately 300,000 km² of the northeast Atlantic were derived from large scale offshore aerial surveys in 2015–2016 using distance sampling techniques. Generalized additive models of sunfish density were fitted to survey data from 17,360 km of line transect effort resulting in minimum abundance estimates of 12,702 (CI: 9,864-16,357) in the summer (Density = 0.043 ind/km²) and 8,223 individuals (CI: 6,178-10,946) (Density = 0.028 ind/km²) in the winter. Density surface models predicted seasonal shifts in distribution and highlighted the importance of the mixed layer depth, possibly related to thermoregulation following deep foraging dives. The abundance estimate and estimated daily consumption of 2,600 tonnes of jellyfish in the northeast Atlantic highlights the need to re-assess the importance of this species in the pelagic ecosystem, and its role in top-down control of jellyfish blooms. Text Northeast Atlantic PubMed Central (PMC) Scientific Reports 7 1 |
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Article Breen, Patricia Cañadas, Ana Cadhla, Oliver Ó Mackey, Mick Scheidat, Meike Geelhoed, Steve C. V. Rogan, Emer Jessopp, Mark New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
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The ocean sunfish, Mola mola, is the largest teleost fish in the world. Despite being found in all oceans of the world, little is known about its abundance and factors driving its distribution. In this study we provide the first abundance estimates for sunfish in offshore waters in the northeast Atlantic and the first record of extensive sunfish presence in these waters year-round. Abundance estimates and predictive distributions for sunfish in approximately 300,000 km² of the northeast Atlantic were derived from large scale offshore aerial surveys in 2015–2016 using distance sampling techniques. Generalized additive models of sunfish density were fitted to survey data from 17,360 km of line transect effort resulting in minimum abundance estimates of 12,702 (CI: 9,864-16,357) in the summer (Density = 0.043 ind/km²) and 8,223 individuals (CI: 6,178-10,946) (Density = 0.028 ind/km²) in the winter. Density surface models predicted seasonal shifts in distribution and highlighted the importance of the mixed layer depth, possibly related to thermoregulation following deep foraging dives. The abundance estimate and estimated daily consumption of 2,600 tonnes of jellyfish in the northeast Atlantic highlights the need to re-assess the importance of this species in the pelagic ecosystem, and its role in top-down control of jellyfish blooms. |
format |
Text |
author |
Breen, Patricia Cañadas, Ana Cadhla, Oliver Ó Mackey, Mick Scheidat, Meike Geelhoed, Steve C. V. Rogan, Emer Jessopp, Mark |
author_facet |
Breen, Patricia Cañadas, Ana Cadhla, Oliver Ó Mackey, Mick Scheidat, Meike Geelhoed, Steve C. V. Rogan, Emer Jessopp, Mark |
author_sort |
Breen, Patricia |
title |
New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
title_short |
New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
title_full |
New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
title_fullStr |
New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
title_full_unstemmed |
New insights into ocean sunfish (Mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast Atlantic |
title_sort |
new insights into ocean sunfish (mola mola) abundance and seasonal distribution in the northeast atlantic |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435681/ https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 |
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Northeast Atlantic |
genre_facet |
Northeast Atlantic |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5435681/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
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CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02103-6 |
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