Relationship between oceanic mesozooplankton and energy of eddy fields

Abstract

The impact of mesoscale eddies on the spatial distribution of zooplankton biomass was analysed using data from the Arabian Sea and the Black Sea. The highest values of spatial variance of zooplankton biomass in the upper 100 to 150 m were found in regions with maximum available potential energy of the eddy fields. Diel temporal trends of zooplankton biomass were observed in the Arabian Sea area. However, the input of the macroscale spatial (horizontal) component of summarised spatio-temporal variability of the zooplankton fields exceeded the input of the diel temporal component. -Authors