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The Association between Stomach Fullness and Vertical Migration Behavior in Deep-Pelagic Crustaceans and Fishes in the Gulf of Mexico, with Notes on Microplastic Ingestion

This thesis presents: 1) the first statistically rigorous support for the longstanding hypothesis that state of satiation modifies diel vertical migration patterns of deep-sea micronektonic crustaceans and fishes; and, 2) the first assessment of microplastic ingestion by deep-pelagic micronekton in the Gulf of Mexico and Straits of Florida. Deep-sea pelagic crustaceans and fishes significantly contribute to abundance and biomass of pelagic ecosystems, are frequently consumed by commercially valuable fishery species, and serve to transport both nutrients and pollutants between shallow and deep waters. The results presented herein will be valuable for assessing risk associated with potential biomagnification of plastic through consumption or indirect consumption of deep-sea biota. Moreover, these data demonstrate that the extent of feeding at depth by non-migratory taxa as well as non-migrating individuals of migratory taxa is substantial. Feeding at depth is usually excluded from biogeochemical models, and these data demonstrate that this is an important factor that must be included to obtain more precise estimates of active nutrient flux by micronekton.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:nova.edu/oai:nsuworks.nova.edu:occ_stuetd-1512
Date15 April 2019
CreatorsBos, Ryan P
PublisherNSUWorks
Source SetsNova Southeastern University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typethesis
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceHCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

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