The role of water mass advection in staging of the Southern Ocean Salpa thompsoni populations

Salpa thompsoni is an important grazer in the Southern Ocean. Their abundance in the western Antarctic Peninsula is highly variable, varying by up to 5000-fold inter-annually. Here, we use a particle-tracking model to simulate the potential dispersal of salp populations from a source location in the...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific Reports
Main Authors: Henschke, Natasha, Espinasse, Boris Dristan, Stock, Charles A., Liu, Xiao, Barrier, Nicolas, Pakhomov, Evgeny A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Springer Nature 2023
Subjects:
Antarctic
Antarctic Peninsula
Southern Ocean
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10037/29976
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-34231-7
Description
Summary:Salpa thompsoni is an important grazer in the Southern Ocean. Their abundance in the western Antarctic Peninsula is highly variable, varying by up to 5000-fold inter-annually. Here, we use a particle-tracking model to simulate the potential dispersal of salp populations from a source location in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) to the Palmer Long Term Ecological Research (PAL LTER) study area. Tracking simulations are run from 1998 to 2015, and compared against both a stationary salp population model simulated at the PAL LTER study area and observations from the PAL LTER program. The tracking simulation was able to recreate closely the long-term trend and the higher abundances at the slope stations. The higher abundances observed at slope stations are likely due to the advection of salp populations from a source location in the ACC, highlighting the signifcant role of water mass circulation in the distribution and abundance of Southern Ocean salp populations.

Similar Items