Abstract
In marine ecosystems, like most natural systems, patchiness is the rule. A characteristic of pelagic ecosystems is that their ‘substrate’ consists of constantly moving water masses, where ocean surface turbulence creates ephemeral oases. Identifying where and when hotspots occur and how predators manage those vagaries in their preyscape is challenging because wide-ranging observations are lacking. Here we use a unique data set, gathering high-resolution and wide-range acoustic and GPS-tracking data. We show that the upper ocean dynamics at scales less than 10 km play the foremost role in shaping the seascape from zooplankton to seabirds. Short internal waves (100 m–1 km) play a major role, while submesoscale (~1–20 km) and mesoscale (~20–100 km) turbulence have a comparatively modest effect. Predicted changes in surface stratification due to global change are expected to have an impact on the number and intensity of physical structures and thus biological interactions from plankton to top predators.
Highlights
In marine ecosystems, like most natural systems, patchiness is the rule
Turbulence is a dynamic process that can be tracked through the deformations it generates in observable water mass properties, such as the vertical deformations of the oxycline or the pycnocline
We analysed the depth of the lower oxycline as observed by acoustics (Fig. 1b–e) and performed a wavelet analysis[19] to identify and characterize the multiscale patterns of ocean turbulence from
Summary
The scale-space structures found for zooplankton, fish and seabirds matched those of ocean dynamics (Fig. 2c,d; Supplementary Table 2). Here we show that at the smallest scales, the size of seabird structures lines up with those of the physics, while the fish and zooplankton patches peak at slightly smaller scales (Fig. 2c,d; Supplementary Table 2). Fish and zooplankton peaks were stronger at night when vertical diel migrations cause organisms to concentrate above the lower oxycline[16,17] as observed during a small-scale in situ experiment in the NHCS32. These structures are characterized by downward vertical deformations, which provide oases with a larger volume of habitat and a greater organism density This led to concentrating biomass with the mean zooplankton and fish biomasses, respectively, B150% and B950% higher within structures than in the neighbouring zone with no significant physical structures (Table 1). Structure and its diving patterns remarkably coincided with the shape of the submesoscale features as well as with the depth of the lower oxycline
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