ORCID
- Katie Jones: 0000-0002-5999-8472
- Giuliano Laudone: 0000-0001-6966-1163
- Katrin Schmidt: 0000-0002-6488-623X
- Simon Belt: 0000-0002-1570-2924
Abstract
Seasonal vertical migration of large lipid-rich copepods is often described as a mass descent of animals when primary production ceases, with important implications for mesopelagic food webs and global carbon sequestration. This view ignores the existence of surface-resident individuals, but here we show that non-migrants can form a substantial part of the populations of polar migrant species. In the Central Arctic Ocean, the biomass-dominant Calanus hyperboreus was evenly distributed throughout the water column from November 2019 to March 2020, with ~20% of subadults and adult females remaining in the upper 200 m and ~41% migrating to 1000–2000 m. These vertical positions aligned with differences in the copepods’ cholesterol content, which can enhance the tissue density at higher temperatures. Gonad development and the vertical distribution of their offspring indicate that both non-migrant and migrant females contribute to the population recruitment. We reinterpret copepod seasonal migration as a bet-hedging strategy that balances nutritional benefits near the surface with survival benefits at depth, and thereby contributes to the species’ resilience under climatic change.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2025-06-04
Publication Title
Communications Earth and Environment
Volume
6
Issue
1
Acceptance Date
2025-05-15
Deposit Date
2025-08-12
Funding
‘MOSAiC’ data presented in this manuscript were produced as part of the international Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of the Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) with the tag MOSAiC20192020 and the Project_ID: AWI_PS122_00. We thank all those involved in the expedition of the RV Polarstern during MOSAiC in 2019–2020 (AWI_PS122_00) as listed in Nixdorf et al.. Martina Vortkamp, Lena Eggers, Anja Nicolaus, Tim Barnes and Lucy Stephenson are curating the associated MOSAiC samples and metadata. We thank Judith Peters and Richard Broughton for discussing the outcomes of our density measurements on Calanus tissue. We enjoyed working with Glynn Gorick on the conceptual model. K.S., A.A. and S.T.B. were funded through the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) contribution to MOSAiC, the SYM-PEL project (NE/S002502/1). C.H.’s contribution to MOSAiC was funded through the Swedish Research Council (Starting Grant 2018-03859). S.S. and F.L.S. were funded by the Dutch Research Council grant 866.18.003, with contributions of the European Commission (EC), European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Framework Contract EASME/EMFF/2018/003, Specific Contract EASME/EMFF/2018/1.3.2.2/03/SI2.805469, and of the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) grant WOT-04-009-047.04. B.L. was supported by a Fellowship at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, Germany. A.C. was funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF; Grant 03F0917A MOSAiC 3). C.J.A., R.G.C., C.E.G., K.M.S. and R.J. were funded by the US National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs (OPP-1824447 and OPP-1824414). Three anonymous reviewers provided constructive comments that improved the manuscript.
First Page
2662
Last Page
4435
Recommended Citation
Jones, K., Laudone, G., Schmidt, K., Niehoff, B., Cornils, A., Hagen, W., Flores, H., Heuzé, C., Welteke, N., Dorschner, S., Woll, M., Campbell, R., Ashjian, C., Gelfman, C., Shoemaker, K., Jenkins, R., Lebreton, B., Guillou, G., Hoppe, C., Sakinan, S., Schaafsma, F., Hildebrandt, N., Castellani, G., Belt, S., Fong, A., Atkinson, A., & Graeve, M. (2025) 'Seasonal vertical migration of large polar copepods reinterpreted as a dispersal mechanism throughout the water column', Communications Earth and Environment, 6(1), pp. 2662-4435. Available at: 10.1038/s43247-025-02389-9
