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Environmental controls on the geographic distribution of zooplankton diversity

Nature volume 400, pages 749–753 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

Proposed explanations for the geographic distribution of zooplankton diversity include control of diversity by geographic variation in: physical and chemical properties of the near-surface ocean1,2,3; the surface area of biotic provinces4; energy availability5; rates of evolution and extinction6; and primary productivity7. None of these explanations has been quantitatively tested on a basin-wide scale. Here we used assemblages of planktic foraminifera from surface sediments to test these hypotheses. Our analysis shows that sea-surface temperature measured by satellite8 explains nearly 90% of the geographic variation in planktic foraminiferal diversity throughout the Atlantic Ocean. Temperatures at depths of 50, 100 and 150 m (ref. 9) are highly correlated to sea-surface temperature and explain the diversity pattern nearly as well. These findings indicate that geographic variation in zooplankton diversity may be directly controlled by the physical structure of the near-surface ocean. Furthermore, our results show that planktic foraminiferal diversity does not strictly adhere to the model of continually decreasing diversity from equator to pole. Instead, planktic foraminiferal diversity peaks in the middle latitudes in all oceans.

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Figure 1: Global pattern of planktic foraminiferal diversity from 1,068 surface-sediment samples.
Figure 2: Actual and predicted planktic foraminiferal diversity in the Atlantic.
Figure 3: Residual diversity (actual diversity minus predicted diversity) from the SST polynomial regression (a) and the temperature at 150 m water depth polynomial regression (b).

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Yoder and J. Ryan for providing the primary productivity and mixed layer data; P. Cornillon and K. Casey for providing the satellite SST data; D. Stammer for providing the geostrophic current velocity data; J. A. McGowan for thoughtful comments; and the U.R.I. Graduate School of Oceanography for publication support.

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  1. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett, 02882, Rhode Island, USA

    Scott Rutherford & Steven D'Hondt

  2. Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, 02912, Rhode Island, USA

    Warren Prell

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Correspondence to Scott Rutherford.

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Rutherford, S., D'Hondt, S. & Prell, W. Environmental controls on the geographic distribution of zooplankton diversity. Nature 400, 749–753 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/23449

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