The spatial distribution and environmental effects on hotspots and coldspots of micronekton in the southwestern Indian Ocean

Abstract

Micronekton communities show large-scale spatiotemporal patterns in pelagic acoustic scattering layers. They are one of the most conspicuous and ecologically-important components of the vast mesopelagic zone of the world's oceans. They play an important role in fishery resources and marine ecology research. In this study, acoustic data from the southwestern Indian Ocean were used to perform a hotspot analysis exploring the differences in micronekton distribution at 16 different spatial scales. Moreover, a generalized additive model (GAM) was used to analyze the effects of environmental variables. The distribution of micronekton was found to be highly correlated with latitude at different spatial scales, with high-density areas (hotspots) distributed between 32°S and 42°S and low-density areas (coldspots) distributed between 43°S and 54°S. With increasing spatial scale, the centers of both high- and low-density micronekton areas tended to move southward. GAM analysis at 20′ × 20′ spatial scale revealed that the micronekton distribution was influenced by the interaction of multiple environmental variables, with photosynthetically active radiation and dissolved oxygen being the two key variables with the highest influence on hotspot and coldspot distributions. The present study provides indepth knowledge on which environmental variables influences the distribution of micronekton under hotspots and coldspots periods in the southwestern Indian Ocean.