Water column stability and Calanus finmarchicus

Gabriel Reygondeau (1) , Gregory Beaugrand (2)

1 UMR EME - Ecosystèmes Marins Exploités
2 Citadel Hill, the Hoe

Many authors have suggested that the abundance of the subarctic species Calanus finmarchicus can be influenced by the structure of the water column. Unfortunately to date, such a link has never been confirmed either experimentally or statistically. By using a macroecological approach, we investigated this hypothesis and showed that it varies with the developmental staged of the species. First, we implemented a new statistical procedure, based on an exponentially weighted moving average, to identify and quantify the depth and intensity of the thermocline. We applied the technique on 1,005,619 temperature profiles over the North Atlantic Ocean and provided a mapping of these two descriptors at a seasonal scale. Second, we studied the relationships between the depth and the intensity of the thermocline and Calanus finmarchicus using a biological dataset of 99,599 sampling stations. Our results suggested that the characteristics of the water column influence the spatial distribution of C. finmarchicus. The frequency in the occurrence of this species decreases when stratification rises. Our results further revealed that the effect is more pronounced on young copepodite stages. Such findings are of interest since, in a warmer world, water stratification is expected to increase, making more likely a reduction in the abundance of this key-structural species.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Gabriel Reygondeau, Gregory Beaugrand. Water column stability and Calanus finmarchicus. Journal of Plankton Research, 2010, 33 (1), pp.119. ⟨10.1093/plankt/FBQ091⟩. ⟨hal-00614186⟩