Tunas are among the most exploited top predators worldwide, with negative impacts on some of their stocks. Changes in population abundance can impact marine food-webs and have potential to alter entire ecosystems. To better understand exploitation tuna stocks critical habitats, basic knowledge diet these species each region is required. Here, we describe two fished archipelago Madeira, Bigeye T...

Fish-mediated carbon export provides a significant proportion of the biological pump in oligotrophic regions. Bioenergetic models estimate this transport, but many lack species-specific traits and no model has been developed mesopelagic Gulf Mexico. Intensive sampling efforts northern eastern Mexico have provided high-resolution information regarding community composition, species' vertical mig...

The glacier lanternfish Benthosema glaciale is a key myctophid with wide distribution in the northern Atlantic. It species that has strong vertical migration capacity and have potential to move between surface waters mesopelagic depths diel cycle (DVM), mainly depending on ambient light conditions. We investigated feeding ecology of B. across Norwegian, Iceland, Irminger Labrador Sea basins. An...

The mesopelagic boundary community around the Hawaiian Islands is a land-associated, sound-scattering layer that undergoes diel migrations with both a vertical and horizontal component. To understand horizontal migration, it is important to understand the full cycle of migration and to determine which animals undertake these movements and which do not. We developed a video camera system to quan...

BACKGROUND Individual variations in the use of the species niche are an important component of diversity in trophic interactions. A challenge in testing consistency of individual foraging strategy is the repeated collection of information on the same individuals. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The foraging strategies of sympatric fur seals (Arctocephalus gazella and A. tropicalis) were examin...

DNA barcode sequences were developed from 557 mesopelagic and upper bathypelagic teleost specimens collected in waters off Atlantic Canada. Confident morphological identifications were available for 366 specimens, of 118 species and 93 genera, which yielded 328 haplotypes. Five of the species were novel to the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD). Most of the 118 species conformed to expectations of...

We hypothesized that changes in southeastern Bering Sea foraging conditions for black-legged kittiwakes (Rissa tridactyla) have caused shifts in habitat use with direct implications for population trends. To test this, we compared at-sea distribution, breeding performance, and nutritional stress of kittiwakes in three years (2008-2010) at two sites in the Pribilof Islands, where the population ...

Understanding the diving behaviour of diving predators in relation to concomitant prey distribution could have major practical applications in conservation biology by allowing the assessment of how changes in fine scale prey distribution impact foraging efficiency and ultimately population dynamics. The southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina, hereafter SES), the largest phocid, is a major pre...

Topographic analyses of retinal ganglion cell density are very useful in providing information about the visual ecology of a species by identifying areas of acute vision within the visual field (i.e. areas of high cell density). In this study, we investigated the neural cell distribution in the ganglion cell layer of a range of lanternfish species belonging to 10 genera. Analyses were performed...

Mesopelagic communities are characterized by a large biomass of diverse macrozooplankton and micronekton (MM) performing diel vertical migration (DVM) connecting the surface to deeper ocean contributing biogeochemical fluxes. In Southern Ocean, prominent High Nutrient Low Chlorophyll (HNLC) low carbon export region, contribution MM flux biological pump remains largely unknown. Furthermore, few ...