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Concentration of pelagic organisms at mesoscale fronts in the western subarctic Pacific: small fish on long waves
Author(s) -
ROGACHEV K. A.,
SALOMATIN A. S.,
CARMACK E. C.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
fisheries oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.016
H-Index - 80
eISSN - 1365-2419
pISSN - 1054-6006
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2419.1996.tb00114.x
Subject(s) - subarctic climate , pelagic zone , mesopelagic zone , oceanography , mesoscale meteorology , geology , shoaling and schooling , fish <actinopterygii> , internal wave , fishery , biology
Acoustical backscatter observations conducted off the Kuril Straits (Boussole and Vries Straits) in the western subarctic Pacific show increased concentrations of mesopelagic fish (suspected to be fish of the family Myctophidae) associated with long (4–40 km), high‐amplitude (about 100 m) internal waves. Such wave packets are thought to be generated by tidally driven flows through the deep Kuril Island straits. Because myctophids are a small, subarctic fish that must remain in cold waters, it is assumed that their increased concentration is due to an ability to sense flow direction and take advantage of the horizontal flow convergence in these long waves. Because vertical motions in waves are weak, small fish can easily maintain their preferred depth of habitat, and their concentrations tend to increase along horizontal convergence lines formed by wave orbital velocities.