edoc

A vast icefish breeding colony discovered in the Antarctic

Purser, Autun and Hehemann, Laura and Boehringer, Lilian and Tippenhauer, Sandra and Wege, Mia and Bornemann, Horst and Pineda-Metz, Santiago E. A. and Flintrop, Clara M. and Koch, Florian and Hellmer, Hartmut H. and Burkhardt-Holm, Patricia and Janout, Markus and Werner, Ellen and Glemser, Barbara and Balaguer, Jenna and Rogge, Andreas and Holtappels, Moritz and Wenzhoefer, Frank. (2022) A vast icefish breeding colony discovered in the Antarctic. Current Biology, 32 (4). pp. 842-850.e4.

Full text not available from this repository.

Official URL: https://edoc.unibas.ch/89727/

Downloads: Statistics Overview

Abstract

A breeding colony of notothenioid icefish (Neopagetopsis ionah, Nybelin 1947) of globally unprecedented extent has been discovered in the southern Weddell Sea, Antarctica. The colony was estimated to cover at least similar to 240 km(2) of the eastern flank of the Filchner Trough, comprised of fish nests at a density of 0.26 nests per square meter, representing an estimated total of -60 million active nests and associated fish biomass of >60,000 tonnes. The majority of nests were each occupied by 1 adult fish guarding 1,735 eggs (+/- 433 SD). Bottom water temperatures measured across the nesting colony were up to 2 degrees C warmer than the surrounding bottom waters, indicating a spatial correlation between the modified Warm Deep Water (mWDW) upflow onto the Weddell Shelf and the active nesting area. Historical and concurrently collected seal movement data indicate that this concentrated fish biomass may be utilized by predators such as Weddell seals (Leptonychotes weddellii, Lesson 1826). Numerous degraded fish carcasses within and near the nesting colony suggest that, in death as well as life, these fish provide input for local food webs and influence local biogeochemical processing. To our knowledge, the area surveyed harbors the most spatially expansive continuous fish breeding colony discovered to date globally at any depth, as well as an exceptionally high Antarctic seafloor biomass. This discovery provides support for the establishment of a regional marine protected area in the Southern Ocean under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) umbrella.
Faculties and Departments:05 Faculty of Science > Departement Umweltwissenschaften > Integrative Biologie > Aquatische Ökologie (Holm)
UniBasel Contributors:Holm, Patricia
Item Type:Article, refereed
Article Subtype:Research Article
ISSN:0960-9822
e-ISSN:1879-0445
Note:Publication type according to Uni Basel Research Database: Journal article
Identification Number:
Last Modified:30 Aug 2022 08:40
Deposited On:30 Aug 2022 08:40

Repository Staff Only: item control page