Publication Open access September 2015

A perspective on the importance of oceanic fronts in promoting aggregation of visitors to seamounts

Fish and Fisheries

10.1111/faf.12126

Open DOI

Total authors

6

Involved team members

1

Citations

38

References

35

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10 years

2025

5

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3

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5

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4

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3

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5

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2

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2

2016

5

Abstract

Abstract Recent evidence has demonstrated that not all seamounts are areas where productivity, biomass and biodiversity of marine life thrive. Therefore, understanding the drivers and mechanisms underlying seamount productivity is a major challenge in today's seamount research. Incorporating oceanographic data in future analyses has been suggested to be of paramount importance to unveil many of the seamount ecology paradigms. Persistent hydrographic features, such as oceanic fronts, have been recognized to enhance biological activity and to drive marine animal distributions and migration patterns. However, the importance of oceanic fronts in driving aggregations of visiting animals on seamounts has not been understood yet. Here, we analysed a data set of seamounts in the P acific O cean alongside satellite‐derived maps of strong, persistent and frequently occurring oceanographic features, to evaluate if oceanic fronts promote aggregation of visitors on seamounts. Our analyses suggest that seamounts with a higher front frequency were more likely to aggregate tuna catch than average seamounts. However, it appears that fronts may be driving factors for aggregation only if present above a certain threshold. These results highlight the importance of environmental conditions in general, and oceanic fronts in particular, in promoting seamount productivity. We therefore argue that a thorough examination of the oceanographic conditions promoting seamount productivity at various temporal and spatial scales is warranted in future seamount research agendas.

Authors

1 involved team member

Telmo Morato Team member

0000-0003-2393-4773

Departamento de Oceanografia e Pescas, and MARE Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre IMAR Instituto do Mar University of the Azores 9901-862 Horta Portugal

+1 more

P

Peter I Miller

0000-0002-5292-8789

Remote Sensing Group, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Prospect Place, Plymouth, PL1 3DH, UK

+1 more

D

Daniel C Dunn

0000-0001-8932-0681

Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab; Nicholas School of the Environment; Duke University; Durham NC 27708 USA

+1 more

S