Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal
The area west of the Kerguelen Islands (20–70°E/45–60°S) is characterized by a weak mesoscale activity except for a standing meander region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) localized between 20 and 40°E. A unique bio-physical dataset at high-resolution collected by a southern elephant seal...
Published in: | Scientific Reports |
---|---|
Main Authors: | , , , , |
Format: | Text |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2019
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944405 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w |
id |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6447572 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6447572 2023-05-15T13:51:43+02:00 Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal Siegelman, Lia O’Toole, Malcolm Flexas, Mar Rivière, Pascal Klein, Patrice 2019-04-03 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944405 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w © The Author(s) 2019 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 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w 2019-04-14T00:22:07Z The area west of the Kerguelen Islands (20–70°E/45–60°S) is characterized by a weak mesoscale activity except for a standing meander region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) localized between 20 and 40°E. A unique bio-physical dataset at high-resolution collected by a southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) reveals a conspicuous increase in foraging activity at the standing meander site up to 5 times larger than during the rest of her three-month trip west of the Kerguelen Islands. Here, we propose a physical explanation for such high biological activity based on the study of small-scale fronts with scales of 5 to 20 km, also called submesoscales. The standing meander is associated with intensified frontal dynamics at submesoscale, not observed in the rest of the region. Results shed new light on the spatial distribution of submesoscale fronts in the under-sampled area west of the Kerguelen plateau and emphasize their importance for upper trophic levels. Despite that most elephant seals target foraging grounds east of the Kerguelen Plateau, our findings suggest that excursions to the west are not accidental, and may be explained by the recurrently elevated physical and biological activity of the site. As such, other standing meanders of the ACC may also act as biological hotspots where trophic interactions are stimulated by submesoscale turbulence. Text Antarc* Antarctic Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Kerguelen Islands Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal PubMed Central (PMC) Antarctic Kerguelen Kerguelen Islands The Antarctic Scientific Reports 9 1 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
PubMed Central (PMC) |
op_collection_id |
ftpubmed |
language |
English |
topic |
Article |
spellingShingle |
Article Siegelman, Lia O’Toole, Malcolm Flexas, Mar Rivière, Pascal Klein, Patrice Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
The area west of the Kerguelen Islands (20–70°E/45–60°S) is characterized by a weak mesoscale activity except for a standing meander region of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) localized between 20 and 40°E. A unique bio-physical dataset at high-resolution collected by a southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) reveals a conspicuous increase in foraging activity at the standing meander site up to 5 times larger than during the rest of her three-month trip west of the Kerguelen Islands. Here, we propose a physical explanation for such high biological activity based on the study of small-scale fronts with scales of 5 to 20 km, also called submesoscales. The standing meander is associated with intensified frontal dynamics at submesoscale, not observed in the rest of the region. Results shed new light on the spatial distribution of submesoscale fronts in the under-sampled area west of the Kerguelen plateau and emphasize their importance for upper trophic levels. Despite that most elephant seals target foraging grounds east of the Kerguelen Plateau, our findings suggest that excursions to the west are not accidental, and may be explained by the recurrently elevated physical and biological activity of the site. As such, other standing meanders of the ACC may also act as biological hotspots where trophic interactions are stimulated by submesoscale turbulence. |
format |
Text |
author |
Siegelman, Lia O’Toole, Malcolm Flexas, Mar Rivière, Pascal Klein, Patrice |
author_facet |
Siegelman, Lia O’Toole, Malcolm Flexas, Mar Rivière, Pascal Klein, Patrice |
author_sort |
Siegelman, Lia |
title |
Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
title_short |
Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
title_full |
Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
title_fullStr |
Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
title_full_unstemmed |
Submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
title_sort |
submesoscale ocean fronts act as biological hotspot for southern elephant seal |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944405 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w |
geographic |
Antarctic Kerguelen Kerguelen Islands The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Kerguelen Kerguelen Islands The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Kerguelen Islands Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Elephant Seal Elephant Seals Kerguelen Islands Mirounga leonina Southern Elephant Seal |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6447572/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30944405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2019 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/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-42117-w |
container_title |
Scientific Reports |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
1 |
_version_ |
1766255750193086464 |