Marine biogeographic barriers can have unpredictable consequences, even among closely related species. To resolve phylogeographic patterns for Indo-Pacific reef fauna, we conducted range-wide surveys of sister species, the scrawled butterflyfish (Chaetodon meyeri; N = 134) and the ornate butterflyfish (Chaetodon ornatissimus; N = 296), using mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b sequences and 10 micro...

The spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) is a temperate, coastal squaloid shark with an antitropical distribution in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The global population structure of this species is poorly understood, although individuals are known to undergo extensive migrations within coastal waters and across ocean basins. In this study, an analysis of the global population structure of the s...

An unprecedented strengthening of Pacific trade winds since the late 1990s (ref. 1) has caused widespread climate perturbations, including rapid sea-level rise in the western tropical Pacific2–5, strengthening of Indo-Pacific ocean currents6,7, and an increased uptake of heat in the equatorial Pacific thermocline1. The corresponding intensification of the atmospheric Walker circulation is also ...

A model for the climatological mean sea surface temperature (SST) of the tropical Pacific Ocean is developed. The upper ocean response is computed using a time dependent, linear, reduced gravity model, with the addition of a constant depth frictional surface layer. The full three-dimensional temperature equation and a surface heat flux parameterization that requires pecification ofonly wind spe...

Planktonic Crenarchaea are thought to play a key role in chemolithotrophic ammonia oxidation, a critical step of the marine nitrogen (N) cycle. In this study, we examined the spatial distributions of ammonia-oxidizing Crenarchaea across a large (approximately 5200 km) region of the central Pacific Ocean. Examination of crenarchaeal 16S rRNA, ammonia monooxygenase subunit A (amoA) genes, and amo...

[1] We introduce a parameterization of ocean mixing by tropical cyclones (TCs) into an Earth system model of intermediate complexity. The parameterization is based on previously published global budgets of TC‐induced mixing derived from high‐resolution satellite measurements of anomalous sea surface temperatures along storm tracks. Recognizing the caveats introduced, for example, by the simplif...

We describe sharp thermal limits to the ocean distribution of steelhead trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) which restrict the distribution of steelhead to only a small fraction of the area of the North Pacific otherwise available for grazing. Maximum likelihood estimates indicate that (1) steelhead exhibit a strong response to temperature in all regions of the North Pacific ocean and in all seasons of...

[1] The anomalous, low-level anticyclone near the Philippines and suppressed convection over the western Pacific associated with the mature warm phase of El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) have been suggested as important elements in the interaction between ENSO and the East Asian monsoon. We examined the causes of these anomalies in the circulation and convection using a newly developed, line...

Post-hatchling loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) in the northern Pacific and northern Atlantic Oceans undertake transoceanic developmental migrations. Similar migratory behaviour is hypothesized in the South Pacific Ocean as post-hatchling loggerhead turtles are observed in Peruvian fisheries, yet no loggerhead rookeries occur along the coast of South America. This hypothesis was supported b...

[1] We develop an empirically constrained multicompartment box model for mercury cycling in open ocean regions to investigate changes in concentrations resulting from anthropogenic perturbations of the global mercury cycle. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we explicitly consider the effects of variability in measured parameters on modeled seawater concentrations. Our simulations show that anthrop...