Title
Spatial patterns of large jellyfish Chrysaora plocamia blooms in the Northern Humboldt Upwelling System in relation to biological drivers and climate
Date Issued
01 July 2018
Access level
metadata only access
Resource Type
journal article
Publisher(s)
Oxford University Press
Abstract
In the Northern Humboldt Upwelling System (NHUS), one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, the large jellyfish Chrysaora plocamia exhibits high inter-annual variability in population size, often resulting in massive blooms. In this study, we examined the geographic patterns C. plocamia in the NHUS and their spatial overlap with ichthyoplankton, zooplankton, and chlorophyll a concentration (Chl a) during two El Nino (EN) years (1982-1983 and 1986-1987), and a neutral year (2014). During EN years, the spatial extent of ∼ C. plocamia medusae was larger than in the neutral year. In 1982-1983, medusae were concentrated mainly in the central-southern and southern regions of Peru, where they were associated with zooplankton, sardine larvae, and Chl a. In 1986-1987, medusae occurred in the northern and southern regions and spatially overlapped with sardine larvae and Chl a, and with zooplankton and anchoveta larvae, respectively. In 2014, medusae occurred mainly in the northern region, where they were associated with zooplankton, Chl a, and anchoveta eggs and larvae. Our results indicate strong EN effects on the distribution and abundance of C. plocamia, which can have consequences for zooplankton and ichthyoplankton abundance, as well as fisheries, in the NHUS.
Start page
1405
End page
1415
Volume
75
Issue
4
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Biología marina, Biología de agua dulce, Limnología Investigación climática
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85051001784
Source
ICES Journal of Marine Science
ISSN of the container
10543139
Sponsor(s)
This work was supported by grant CRN3070 from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI), which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-1128040). We thank Jesus Ledesma from the chemical oceanography department for providing cholorophyll data and to Américo Sanchez for the guidelines in the spatial analysis. ArcGIS 10.1 (ESRI) Licene No. 358632.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus