Scientists Uncover a “Missing Link” – Sea Secrets Surface in the Great Australian Bight



The year-round presence of marine predators in the eastern Great Australian Bight, such as various whale species and white sharks that are popular among cage divers and Jaws-inspired filmmakers, has been better understood by oceanographers.                                                                                                   
Scientists from Flinders University and the South Australian Research and Development Institute have described the deep subsurface phytoplankton layers deep beneath the eastern part of the Bight for the first time (SARDI). Even when the surface phytoplankton blooms vanish during specific periods of the upwelling season, these layers continue to support the rich marine biodiversity.

According to Alex Shute, a researcher at Flinders University and the primary author of a recent study published in Continental Shelf Research, "we need to further understand these processes and food supplies to maintain this crucial region and prepare for climate change."

In order to comprehend this, "we used satellite data in conjunction with water-column data from the Integrated Marine Observing System (IMOS) to study year-to-year fluctuations of phytoplankton layers in the region."

Surprisingly, the IMOS data discovered a "missing link" of layers of significant subsurface phytoplankton at sea depths of 30 m to 70 m that had previously eluded detection from even satellite imagery.

Jochen Kaempf, an associate professor of oceanography at Flinders University, and colleagues have been researching the seasonal upwelling of nutrient-rich water for more than 20 years.

Large marine mammals like whales, seals, and sea lions as well as significant fish species like southern bluefin tuna are drawn to Australia's most prolific marine environment, the Great Southern Australian Coastal Upwelling System (GSACUS).

This new study, according to Associate Professor Kaempf, shows how the marine food chain persists even in years with no surface phytoplankton upwelling.                
"The missing piece to the puzzle explaining the high productivity of the region is our finding of underlying phytoplankton layers." This study shows how little we actually understand about how marine ecosystems function and how crucial actual field observations are," adds Associate Professor Kaempf, president of the Adelaide Division of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS).

By FLINDERS UNIVERSITY SEPTEMBER 18, 2022

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