Extreme diving behaviour in devil rays links surface waters and the deep ocean

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Date
2014-07-01Author
Thorrold, Simon R.
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Afonso, Pedro
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Fontes, Jorge
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Braun, Camrin D.
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Santos, Ricardo S.
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Skomal, Gregory B.
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Berumen, Michael L.
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https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6754As published
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms5274DOI
10.1038/ncomms5274Abstract
Ecological connections between surface waters and the deep ocean remain poorly studied despite the high biomass of fishes and squids residing at depths beyond the euphotic zone. These animals likely support pelagic food webs containing a suite of predators that include commercially important fishes and marine mammals. Here we deploy pop-up satellite archival transmitting tags on 15 Chilean devil rays (Mobula tarapacana) in the central North Atlantic Ocean, which provide movement patterns of individuals for up to 9 months. Devil rays were considered surface dwellers but our data reveal individuals descending at speeds up to 6.0 m s−1 to depths of almost 2,000 m and water temperatures <4 °C. The shape of the dive profiles suggests that the rays are foraging at these depths in deep scattering layers. Our results provide evidence of an important link between predators in the surface ocean and forage species occupying pelagic habitats below the euphotic zone in ocean ecosystems.
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© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 5 (2014): 4274, doi:10.1038/ncomms5274.
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Nature Communications 5 (2014): 4274The following license files are associated with this item: