Global ecological and biogeochemical impacts of pelagic tunicates

Luo, Jessica Y.; Stock, Charles A.; Henschke, Natasha; Dunne, John; O’Brien, Todd

doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2022.102822

Cited by 37 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 139 publications

(250 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…m -3 in the northern Gulf of Mexico, yielding mean biomass values from 0.08 – 3.33 mg C m -3 (Table 1). These values were compared against the Thaliacean carbon biomass data from the Jelly Database Initiative (JeDI, Condon et al 2015) and compiled in Luo et al (2022), as well as the NOAA COPEPOD database (Moriarty and O’Brien 2012). In the grid cells where data were available, doliolid carbon biomass from the present study was lower than thaliacean biomass from JeDI by a factor of 4-10, and lower than crustacean mesozooplankton carbon biomass by a factor of 4-100 (Table 1).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shallowest environment sampled (northern Gulf of Mexico, 35 m), had the highest biomass concentration at 3.33 mg C m -3 . While difficult to directly compare against the total Thaliacean biomass data compilation of Luo et al (2022), which includes salps and pyrosomes averaged across all seasons and in a coarse grid (~100 km horizontal resolution), doliolid carbon biomass values from the ISIIS data were typically ~10-30% of these values. When compared against large crustacean biomass values (Moriarty and O’Brien 2013), the ISIIS-derived doliolid biomass values were approximately 1-2 orders of magnitude lower, as the large crustacean mesozooplankton ranged from 2.53 mg C m -3 off the coast of Florida to 20.0 mg C m -3 in the northern Mediterranean.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The average length of the major axis of the fitted ellipse (8 mm, n = 3,516) was calculated in ImageJ (v1.52a, Schneider et al 2012) and was used to convert to carbon biomass using the relationship from Gibson and Paffenhӧfer (2000): Doliolid weight (µg C) = 0.4643 (length in mm) 2.3119 Doliolid carbon biomass m -3 was then calculated using the average concentration of individuals in the upper 100 m in each sampling region multiplied by the average individual weight. To place these values in context of previously published Thaliacean carbon biomass data, as well as other mesozooplankton carbon biomass, we compared our values against a data compilation of Thaliacean (doliolids, salps, and pyrosomes combined) and crustacean mesozooplankton biomass (details in Luo et al 2022). Individual Thaliacean data points were extracted from the Jellyfish Database Initiative (Condon et al 2015) and averaged to a 1°x1° grid.…”

Section: Mean Carbon Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A comparative approach incorporating observations in contrasting oceanographic environments can advance our understanding of the realized niche for doliolids and similar rapidly reproducing organisms. Resolving these spatial niches has implications for predicting change in marine ecosystem function, as the conditions favoring gelatinous organisms influence the fate of carbon and other biogeochemical processes (Décima et al 2019; Luo et al 2020; 2022; Tinta et al 2021). Existing imagery datasets from different ecosystems during time periods with sharp environmental gradients (summer and early fall seasons) can help determine if common oceanographic variables and vertical water column structure influence doliolid abundance and patchiness in ecosystems with different forcing mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

In situ imaging across ecosystems to resolve the fine-scale oceanographic drivers of a globally significant planktonic grazer

Greer

Schmid

Duffy

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Doliolids are common gelatinous grazers in marine ecosystems around the world and likely influence carbon cycling due to their large population sizes and high growth and excretion rates. Aggregations or blooms of these organisms occur frequently, but they are difficult to measure or predict because doliolids are fragile, under sampled with conventional plankton nets, and can aggregate on fine spatial scales (1-10 m). Moreover, ecological studies typically target particular regions that do not encompass the range of possible habitats favoring doliolid proliferation. To address these limitations, we combined in situ imaging data from six coastal ecosystems, including the Oregon shelf, northern California, southern California Bight, northern Gulf of Mexico, Straits of Florida, and Mediterranean Sea, to resolve and compare doliolid habitat associations during warm months when environmental gradients are strong and doliolid blooms are frequently documented. Higher ocean temperature was the strongest predictor of elevated doliolid abundances across ecosystems, with additional variance explained by chlorophyll-a fluorescence and oxygen. The relative abundance of the nurse stage tended to increase when total doliolid abundance was low, but this pattern did not hold in upwelling ecosystems, indicating that nurses occupy less favorable habitats in established populations with wider shelf habitats. The doliolids tended to be most aggregated in oligotrophic systems (Mediterranean and southern California), suggesting that microhabitats within the water column favor proliferation on fine spatial scales. Similar comparative approaches can resolve the realized niche of fast-reproducing marine animals, thus improving predictions of population changes in response to oceanographic conditions.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mean Carbon Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

In situ imaging across ecosystems to resolve the fine-scale oceanographic drivers of a globally significant planktonic grazer

Greer

Schmid

Duffy

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, larvaceans and salps are extremely abundant mesozooplankton that can filter bacteria and picophytoplankton, unavailable to crustaceans, and generally grow an order of magnitude faster than crustacean zooplankton (61). Further, filter-feeding gelatinous macrozooplankton have been shown to play an important role in carbon export via the production of rapidly sinking carcasses and fecal pellets (62), leading to their recent inclusion in experiments using modified versions of COBALTv2 (63) and PISCESv2 (64). Continuing to accurately resolve these difference should be priority for next-generation BGC models.…”

Section: Moving Forwardmentioning

confidence: 99%

Marine carbon cycling and sequestration is extremely sensitive to zooplankton grazing in biogeochemical models

Rohr

Richardson²,

Lenton

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Zooplankton grazing regulates marine carbon cycling by constraining phytoplankton populations and the subsequent transfer of carbon to depth and higher trophic levels. Yet, without robust in-situ data to constrain them, the grazing formulation in state-of-the-art climate models varies largely. We present a new metric to compare how fast zooplankton are assumed to graze in 10 state-of-the-art (CMIP6) biogeochemical models and find they differ by nearly 2 orders of magnitude, implying an ocean populated exclusively with everything from slow-grazing krill to rapidly-grazing ciliates. We use a global, coupled ocean-biogeochemistry model to test the sensitivity of marine carbon cycling to this uncertainty and find the Net Primary Production (NPP) and export efficiency collapse across the range of plausible values. Even when tuned to identical NPP by increasing phytoplankton growth rates, export and secondary production remain extremely sensitive to grazing, likely biasing predictions of future climate states and food security.

show abstract