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Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean

Ecological connections between surface waters and the deep ocean remain poorly studied despite the high biomass of fishes and squids residing at depths beyond the euphotic zone. These animals likely support pelagic food webs containing a suite of predators that include commercially important fishes...

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Autores principales: Thorrold, Simon R., Afonso, Pedro, Fontes, Jorge, Braun, Camrin D., Santos, Ricardo S., Skomal, Gregory B., Berumen, Michael L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Pub. Group 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4102113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5274
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author Thorrold, Simon R.
Afonso, Pedro
Fontes, Jorge
Braun, Camrin D.
Santos, Ricardo S.
Skomal, Gregory B.
Berumen, Michael L.
author_facet Thorrold, Simon R.
Afonso, Pedro
Fontes, Jorge
Braun, Camrin D.
Santos, Ricardo S.
Skomal, Gregory B.
Berumen, Michael L.
author_sort Thorrold, Simon R.
collection PubMed
description Ecological connections between surface waters and the deep ocean remain poorly studied despite the high biomass of fishes and squids residing at depths beyond the euphotic zone. These animals likely support pelagic food webs containing a suite of predators that include commercially important fishes and marine mammals. Here we deploy pop-up satellite archival transmitting tags on 15 Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) in the central North Atlantic Ocean, which provide movement patterns of individuals for up to 9 months. Devil rays were considered surface dwellers but our data reveal individuals descending at speeds up to 6.0 m s(−1) to depths of almost 2,000 m and water temperatures <4 °C. The shape of the dive profiles suggests that the rays are foraging at these depths in deep scattering layers. Our results provide evidence of an important link between predators in the surface ocean and forage species occupying pelagic habitats below the euphotic zone in ocean ecosystems.
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spelling pubmed-41021132014-07-17 Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean Thorrold, Simon R. Afonso, Pedro Fontes, Jorge Braun, Camrin D. Santos, Ricardo S. Skomal, Gregory B. Berumen, Michael L. Nat Commun Article Ecological connections between surface waters and the deep ocean remain poorly studied despite the high biomass of fishes and squids residing at depths beyond the euphotic zone. These animals likely support pelagic food webs containing a suite of predators that include commercially important fishes and marine mammals. Here we deploy pop-up satellite archival transmitting tags on 15 Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) in the central North Atlantic Ocean, which provide movement patterns of individuals for up to 9 months. Devil rays were considered surface dwellers but our data reveal individuals descending at speeds up to 6.0 m s(−1) to depths of almost 2,000 m and water temperatures <4 °C. The shape of the dive profiles suggests that the rays are foraging at these depths in deep scattering layers. Our results provide evidence of an important link between predators in the surface ocean and forage species occupying pelagic habitats below the euphotic zone in ocean ecosystems. Nature Pub. Group 2014-07-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4102113/ /pubmed/24983949 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5274 Text en Copyright © 2014, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Thorrold, Simon R.
Afonso, Pedro
Fontes, Jorge
Braun, Camrin D.
Santos, Ricardo S.
Skomal, Gregory B.
Berumen, Michael L.
Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title_full Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title_fullStr Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title_full_unstemmed Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title_short Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
title_sort extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4102113/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983949
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5274
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