Rich and underreported: First integrated assessment of the diversity of mesopelagic fishes in the Southwestern Tropical Atlantic

Eduardo, Leandro Nolé; Bertrand, Arnaud; Lucena‐Frédou, Flávia; Villarins, Bárbara T.; Martins, Júlia Rodrigues; Afonso, G.; Pietsch, Theodore W.; Frédou, Thierry; Dario, Fabio Di

doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.937154

Cited by 13 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…7) will tend to be more homogenous. Within the recent effort in increasing knowledge on regional biodiversity in the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic (Eduardo et al 2022, Tosetto et al 2022b, this is a promising hypothesis to be tested in the future.…”

Section: Box 1 Empirical Confirmation Of the Patterns Of Dispersal An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying community assembling zones and connectivity pathways in the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic Ocean

Giachini Tosetto,

Lett,

Koch‐Larrouy

et al. 2023

Ecography

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Dispersal is more intense in the ocean than on land because most marine taxa present planktonic life stages that are transported by currents even without specific morphological traits. Thus, species dispersal shapes the distribution of biodiversity along seascapes and drives the composition of biodiversity assemblages. To identify marine assembling zones which characterise spatial areas particularly prone to receive and retain similar animal assemblages from the regional pool of species through passive dispersal, we propose a community‐based approach grounded on Lagrangian simulations of plankton dispersal. This novel approach was applied to communities (coast, outer shelf, slope, seamounts and islands; 0–80 m depth) of the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic and used to assess connectivity pathways. For that, we classified the modelled particles in 15 categories according to biological traits (planktonic life duration and spawning habitat) of representative planktonic communities. From the hierarchical clustering of the multivariate matrix containing the amount of arriving particles from each category in each cell we defined 14 assembling zones. Results highlighted that the assembling zones were mostly shaped by the degree of exposure to currents and the presence of mesoscale features (eddies, recirculation) derived from the interaction between these currents and coastlines. The boundaries, dispersal and connectivity patterns of these zones consistently align with local and regional in situ spatial distribution and abundance patterns of organisms, and provide an appropriate basis for the formulation of ecological hypotheses in the metacommunity framework to be tested in situ, such as the balance between species sorting and mass effect assembling archetypes. This approach, when coupled with the knowledge of other processes shaping communities' structure and distribution, provides important insights for regions and animal groups for which knowledge is limited or absent, and more generally allows for a comprehensive overview of the distribution of distinct communities and connectivity pathways along marine environments.

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Section: Box 1 Empirical Confirmation Of the Patterns Of Dispersal An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying community assembling zones and connectivity pathways in the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic Ocean

Giachini Tosetto,

Lett,

Koch‐Larrouy

et al. 2023

Ecography

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“…Each trawl lasted approximately 30 minutes. Except for the layers 200-300 and 700-800 at night, where no aggregation of organisms was observed through acoustics, all depth strata were sampled at least once (for further information on sampling procedures, see Eduardo et al, 2022). A total of 7,190 fish specimens were collected, representing 200 distinct species (SI Table S1).…”

Section: Samplingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Seventeen qualitative traits were selected to investigate the functions of feeding, locomotion, and survival (i.e., traits used as survival strategy) (Table 1) for 184 species among the 200 species (see Eduardo et al, 2022). Traits values were obtained from bibliographic references and the NPM museum specimens.…”

Section: Trait Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More specifically, in mesopelagic research, a pivotal question revolves around how a zone with such environmental constraints can support important species diversity and biomass (Gjøsaeter and Kawaguchi, 1980;Eduardo et al, 2022), challenging the initial supposition of reduced biodiversity in deep-sea ecosystems (Priede, 2017). The remarkable diversity found in these ecosystems may stem from the ecological specialization of species, considering their niche and functional roles (Devictor et al, 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Living in darkness: functional diversity of mesopelagic fishes in the western tropical Atlantic

Aparecido,

Frédou,

Eduardo

et al. 2023

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Mesopelagic zones (200–1,000-m depth) are characterized by relatively low light levels, cold waters, and often limited oxygen, forming a stable yet challenging habitat for their inhabitants. To overcome these constraints, mesopelagic fishes have developed several adaptations that enable them to participate in crucial ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, carbon transport, and provisioning of harvestable fish stocks. However, our understanding of the functional diversity of mesopelagic fishes remains limited, while it is of particular importance considering the increase in human threats and possible environmental changes in the deep ecosystems. In this context, functional diversity emerges as a powerful tool and can help assess community assembly rules, including species complementary and redundancy. Here, we take advantage of scientific surveys that collected 200 species taxa identified from over 7,000 specimens to determine the functional diversity of mesopelagic fish assemblages across depths and the day–night period. We created a data set of 17 qualitative functional traits related to feeding, survival, and locomotion functions. Based on this information, functional spaces and diversity indices were calculated, and functional groups were established. Furthermore, the influence on the functional diversity of environmental variables and the day–night period was assessed by generalized additive models (GAMs). The hypothesis of functional complementary was tested. Overall, mesopelagic fishes displayed a high functional diversity and could be grouped into 10 major functional groups. Moreover, 107 species exhibited a unique composition of functional trait values, revealing a vast complementarity of functions within the deep-sea ecosystem. We also showed that functional diversity in mesopelagic ecosystems is neither static nor homogeneous, exhibiting higher values in the deepest layers and varying between day and night. We finally discuss processes that may structure mesopelagic fish assemblages and the implications of our findings for the conservation mesopelagic fishes.

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“…However, it is suggested that they may play an important role in food security and nutrition (FSN) (Standal and Grimaldo, 2020;Kourantidou and Jin, 2022;Fjeld et al, 2023). Mesopelagic fishes are often low in trophic level and diverse (Eduardo et al, 2022) and are estimated to contain more than ten billion tons of biomass globally (Irigoien et al, 2014;Standal and Grimaldo, 2021). In addition, some mesopelagic species have been found to be dense in essential nutrients such as iodine, selenium, vitamin A 1 and w-3 fatty acids (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differences in nutrient and undesirable substance concentrations in Maurolicus muelleri across the Bay of Biscay, Norwegian fjords, and the North Sea

et al. 2023

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IntroductionWe are having pressing issues of global food insecurity and malnutrition. Mesopelagic communities in the North Atlantic have been estimated to have high biomasses of organisms. Some of these low-trophic organisms are known to be nutrient-dense and may thus contribute to food security and nutrition. Here, we aim to understand the variation in nutrient and undesirable substance concentrations in a common mesopelagic species, Maurolicus muelleri in the North Atlantic Ocean.MethodsWe sampled the M. muelleri from the Bay of Biscay (BB), Norwegian fjords (NF), and the North Sea (NS). The concentrations of micro- and macronutrients, undesirable metals, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were measured in composite whole fish samples.ResultsWe found no difference across the sampling areas in the selected micronutrients except that the NF and NS samples had higher vitamin A1 concentrations than the BB samples. The NF samples had higher concentrations of fat, fatty acids, and POPs but lower concentrations of cadmium than the BB and NS samples; the differences in fat and fatty acids were only marginal in the NF-BB pair. The BB samples had lower arsenic concentrations than the NS samples, and lower concentrations of erucic acid and mercury than the NF and NS samples. Comparing the measured values against existing EU regulation values for nutrients and undesirable substances for human consumption, we found that the samples from NS and BB may cause food safety concerns due to their high cadmium concentrations, while the M. muelleri from all the sampling areas are qualified as good sources of iron, selenium, vitamin A1, and ω-3 fatty acids.DiscussionThis study confirms that M. muelleri from the North Atlantic Ocean may play an important role in food security and nutrition. However, potential variations in nutrient and undesirable substance concentrations related to seasonality, fish body size, and maturity level shall be taken into consideration prior to exploiting such a marine resource. Further understanding of trophic ecology, life cycles, and productivity of M. muelleri is essential to investigate the drivers behind the observed variation in nutrient and undesirable substance concentrations.

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Rich and underreported: First integrated assessment of the diversity of mesopelagic fishes in the Southwestern Tropical Atlantic

Cited by 13 publications

References 57 publications

Identifying community assembling zones and connectivity pathways in the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic Ocean

Identifying community assembling zones and connectivity pathways in the Tropical Southwestern Atlantic Ocean

Living in darkness: functional diversity of mesopelagic fishes in the western tropical Atlantic

Differences in nutrient and undesirable substance concentrations in Maurolicus muelleri across the Bay of Biscay, Norwegian fjords, and the North Sea

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