Large Mesopelagic Fishes Biomass and Trophic Efficiency in the Open Ocean

Statistics
Metrics and citations
Share
Metadata
Show full item recordDate
2014-01-01Department
BiologíaSource
Nature Communications 5, Article number: 3271Abstract
With a current estimate of B1,000 million tons, mesopelagic fishes likely dominate the
world total fishes biomass. However, recent acoustic observations show that mesopelagic
fishes biomass could be significantly larger than the current estimate. Here we combine
modelling and a sensitivity analysis of the acoustic observations from the Malaspina 2010
Circumnavigation Expedition to show that the previous estimate needs to be revised to at
least one order of magnitude higher. We show that there is a close relationship between the
open ocean fishes biomass and primary production, and that the energy transfer efficiency
from phytoplankton to mesopelagic fishes in the open ocean is higher than what is typically
assumed. Our results indicate that the role of mesopelagic fishes in oceanic ecosystems and
global ocean biogeochemical cycles needs to be revised as they may be respiring B10% of
the primary production in deep waters
Subjects
fish biomass; mesopelagic fishes; acoustic profileCollections
- Artículos Científicos [4846]
- Articulos Científicos Biología [268]
- Artículos Científicos INMAR [418]
- Investigación Ceimar [121]