2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting

February 21-26

Ocean fronts are sharp horizontal gradients in physical properties such as temperature, salinity and density. Fronts manifest throughout the oceans over a range of spatio-temporal scales, from ephemeral sub-mesoscale features in shelf seas to persistent basin-scale water mass boundaries in the open oceans. Under certain conditions, bio-physical coupling along fronts can lead to enhanced primary productivity and the aggregation of zooplankton and micronekton.  This low trophic level enhancement is known to attract marine predators such as seabirds, turtles, sharks and tuna to front-associated foraging and migration habitats.  However, key questions remain regarding the mechanisms through which the physical properties of fronts interact with prey field dynamics and the foraging ecology of marine predators to influence associations.  A better understanding of the physical-biological interactions that occur at fronts, and the influence of spatial scale, frontal persistence and wider regional oceanography is required to ascertain their ecological importance, and predict future shifts in critical predator habitats.  This session seeks to gather researchers to share new insights into physical-biological interactions at fronts in pelagic systems.  We particularly encourage inter-disciplinary presentations that integrate model-derived or remotely-sensed oceanographic data with biological indices to elucidate the mechanistic links between physical processes, predators and prey.

• PO - Physical Oceanography/Ocean Circulation
• PP - Phytoplankton and Primary Production
• O - Other