Southern Ocean salp diel vertical migration and the significant influence of life cycle stage and body size
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Diel vertical migration (DVM) is a widespread behavior among zooplankton and micronekton, playing a crucial role in carbon cycling by transporting organic matter to depth. The Southern Ocean salp, Salpa thompsoni , is an abundant gelatinous zooplankton species recognized for its significant contribution to vertical carbon export. It’s high grazing capacity, production of rapidly sinking fecal pellets, and extensive DVMs make it a key player in biogeochemical cycles. Despite its ecological importance, the influence of the life cycle stage and body size on S. thompsoni ’s migratory behavior has been understudied. Utilizing net data from six Southern Ocean locations collected between 1989 and 2018, we provide stage- and size-specific vertical distribution and migration distance estimates, supported by circumpolar predictions using a mixed-effects modeling approach. Our results reveal that small-bodied, early developmental salps migrate amplitudes up to three times greater than their larger, reproductive counterparts, which tend to remain stationary or undergo reverse DVM. Environmental factors, such as salinity and euphotic zone depth strongly influence S. thompsoni DVM patterns, with the potential to impose as primary controls on the main hypothesized driver, reproduction. This first Southern Ocean-wide analysis of S. thompsoni DVM underscores the critical importance of incorporating life cycle stage and body size into assessments of salp behavior. Understanding these dynamics is essential for improving the estimated vertical carbon export via the migrant pump and refining global biogeochemical models.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".