Arctic – Neil Banas

Calanus glacialis and the lightscape of fear

Diel vertical migration in zooplankton—in which many taxa like copepods move downward into darkness during the day and back up toward surface in order to feed at night—has been described as the largest animal migration on the planet. But what really are the tradeoffs and behavioural rules that govern this, in the more complex form … Read more

Bowhead whales and plankton teleconnections

Disko Bay, West Greenland is at the end of oceanic “rivers” of Calanus copepods (red/orange lines below) that enter the bay in winter, still in diapause. They form a really dense, deep layer, and bowhead whales come from a wide area (purple) to eat them. So how much of the Calanus standing stock do the … Read more

Coltrane (Copepod Life-history Traits and Adaptation to Novel Environments)

The Coltrane (Copepod Life history Traits and Adaptation to New Environments) model is a mathematical framework for layering multiple levels of mesozooplankton biology on top of oceanographic models. It resolves 1) individual life history (strategy traits controlling growth, development, and size, diagnosed from a broad review of lab studies); 2) population dynamics (the time-dependent energy … Read more

The Bering Sea in spring, 1971-2050

The Eastern Bering Sea hosts extremely rich pelagic and benthic fisheries, and also experiences strong interannual variation in both fisheries recruitment and the underlying physics and plankton biology. This paper…