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| Titel |
How do interactions with the physical environment affect the distribution of Antarctic krill? |
| VerfasserIn |
Sally Thorpe, Eugene Murphy, Geraint Tarling, Angelika Renner |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2010
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 12 (2010) |
| Datensatznummer |
250037841
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| Zusammenfassung |
| Antarctic krill Euphausia superba are a relatively large (60+Â mm), long-lived (~6 years)
crustacean with a patchy distribution in the Southern Ocean. In addition to being a key food
source for many of the higher marine predators of the Southern Ocean, Antarctic krill is also
the target of a commercial fishery. This increases the importance of understanding what
drives the observed heterogeneous distribution of krill. In this study we use a coupled
physical-biological model to examine the role of physical forcing in generating the
observed distribution. By incorporating aspects of the life cycle of krill into a particle
tracking model (using output from the OCCAM ocean model), we can identify
key stages at which interaction with the environment determines the dispersal or
retention of the local krill populations. For example, sea ice is an important habitat
for young krill and our results suggest that in places the association of the krill
with the sea ice can create opposing population connections to those due solely
to ocean circulation. A long time series of output from the ORCA ocean model
allows us to investigate the variability in some of these population connections and
suggests that trends in the environmental forcing, as observed for example with
the Southern Annular Mode, are likely to impact the Southern Ocean ecosystem. |
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