Mesoscale Eddies Are Oases for Higher Trophic Marine Life

Abstract

Mesoscale eddies stimulate biological production in the ocean, but knowledge of energy transfers to higher trophic levels within eddies remains fragmented and not quantified. Increasing the knowledge base is constrained by the inability of traditional sampling methods to adequately sample biological processes at the spatio-temporal scales at which they occur.By combining satellite and acoustic observations over spatial scales of 10 s of km horizontally and 100 s of m vertically, supported by hydrographical and biological sampling we show that anticyclonic eddies shape distribution and density of marine life from the surface to bathyal depths. Fish feed along density structures of eddies, demonstrating that eddies catalyze energy transfer across trophic levels. Eddies create attractive pelagic habitats, analogous to oases in the desert, for higher trophic level aquatic organisms through enhanced 3-D motion that accumulates and redistributes biomass, contributing to overall bioproduction in the ocean.Integrating multidisciplinary observation methodologies promoted a new understanding of biophysical interaction in mesoscale eddies. Our findings emphasize the impact of eddies on the patchiness of biomass in the sea and demonstrate that they provide rich feeding habitat for higher trophic marine life.

Movements and habitat use of reef manta rays off eastern Australia: offshore excursions, deep diving and eddy affinity revealed by satellite telemetry

“…Mesoscale eddies, such as the Capricorn Eddy, stimulate and redistribute biological production in the ocean, thus creating attractive pelagic habitats for free-ranging, higher trophic level marine organisms (Chelton et al 2011, Godø et al 2012. Our results suggest that manta rays may exploit offshore mesoscale eddies for foraging purposes and corroborate several other studies that showed the importance of mesoscale eddies as offshore foraging grounds for a variety of marine species (e.g.…”

Foraging strategy switch of a top marine predator according to seasonal resource differences

“…These filaments, which correspond to frontal transportation, are reported to carry high zooplankton densities (Labat et al, 2009;Perruche et al, 2011), which may explain why seals are more likely to increase search intensity in response to sites of elevated plankton densities, even throughout winter. Cotté et al (2014) also suggest that seals may temporally exploit these rich filaments while also using them to track the most profitable meso-scale features where higher prey densities occur (e.g., eddies- Godo et al, 2012). This is consistent with our results which showed seals foraging in winter were more likely to spend greater time foraging at depth and increase foraging success in response to elevated plankton densities.…”

“…This is consistent with our results which showed seals foraging in winter were more likely to spend greater time foraging at depth and increase foraging success in response to elevated plankton densities. Strong meandering meso-scale eddies created by the energetic ACC (Chelton et al, 2007) are thought to facilitate plankton accumulation (Godo et al, 2012) and retention times long enough to transfer energy to different trophic levels (Biggs, 1992;Riandey et al, 2005;Benitez-Nelson and McGillicuddy, 2008), including fish (e.g., Nishimoto and Washburn, 2002;Zainuddin et al, 2006) and apex predators such as SESs (d 'Ovidio et al, 2013). These advected water parcels are thought to sustain the pelagic ecosystem east of its origin and could explain the progressively eastward displacement of winter foraging seals.…”

Monitoring the mesoscale eddies of the Lofoten Basin: importance, progress, and challenges

“…This heat loss is important since anomalous heat transported by the slope current downstream of the Lofoten Basin is found to influence the sea ice cover in the Barents Sea (Sandø et al 2010;Årthun et al 2012) and the regional climate of Svalbard (Walczowski and Piechura 2011). Furthermore, mesoscale eddies in the basin are found to provide a rich feeding habitat for higher trophic marine life (Godø et al 2012). Thus, similar to other regions of the world oceans (e.g.…”