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Abundance of drifting seaweeds in eastern East China Sea

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Abstract

Drifting seaweeds play important ecological roles in offshore waters. Recently, large amounts of drifting seaweed rafts were found in the eastern East China Sea between the continental shelf and the oceanic front of the Kuroshio Current. However, so far there have been no quantitative reports about this particular area. Two research cruises were organized to survey abundance and standing crop of drifting seaweeds in eastern East China Sea in May 2002 and March 2004, using visual census and net sampling of drifting seaweeds. Visual census data were composed of drifting seaweed raft diameter, perpendicular distance from the transect (navigation course of the research vessel) to the raft, and positions. Using these data, we calculated the “effective stripe width” using the DISTANCE software. Drifting seaweed abundance (composed exclusively of Sargassum horneri) in waters located between the continental shelf peripheral area and the Kuroshio oceanic front was estimated to be higher than in any other area within eastern East China Sea in March and May. Abundance means in May 2002 and March 2004 were 6.14 and 29.05 rafts km−2, respectively, while standing crop reached 126.81 and 20.35 kg km−2 (wet weight). Mean diameter and drifting seaweed rafts in May 2002 were significantly greater than in March 2004, reflecting seasonal growth of Sargassum horneri.

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Abbreviations

AIC:

Akaike’s Information Criterion

ESW:

Effective Strip half-Width

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank to the captain and crew of R/V Hakuho Maru, Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo. They express sincere appreciation to the researchers who helped them for observation and sampling of drifting seaweeds. This work was supported partially by the grant in aid for scientific research of Japan Science Promotion Society, No. 15405003 and 19405033.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 1-15-1, Minamidai, Nakanoku, Tokyo, 164-8639, Japan

    Teruhisa Komatsu, Daisuke Matsunaga, Atsuko Mikami, Tatsuyuki Sagawa, Etienne Boisnier, Kenichi Tatsukawa, Kenichi Ishida & Hideaki Tanoue

  2. Shimoda Marine Research Center, University of Tsukuba, 5-10-1, Shimoda, Shizuoka, 415-0025, Japan

    Masakazu Aoki

  3. Division of Applied Biosciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa Oiwakecho, Sakyoku, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Tetsuro Ajisaka

  4. Department of Natural Science, Faculty of Science, Niigata University, 8050 Ikarashi 2-no-cho, Niigata City, 950-2181, Japan

    Shinya Uwai

  5. Environmental Science Research Laboratory, Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, 1646, Abiko, Abikoshi, Chiba, 270-1194, Japan

    Katsuhiko Tanaka

  6. Institute of Oceanic Research and Development, Tokai University, 3-20-1, Orido, Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, 424-8610, Japan

    Takashige Sugimoto

Authors
  1. Teruhisa Komatsu
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  2. Daisuke Matsunaga
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  3. Atsuko Mikami
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  4. Tatsuyuki Sagawa
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  7. Masakazu Aoki
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  8. Tetsuro Ajisaka
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  9. Shinya Uwai
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  10. Katsuhiko Tanaka
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  11. Kenichi Ishida
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  12. Hideaki Tanoue
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  13. Takashige Sugimoto
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Correspondence to Teruhisa Komatsu.

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Komatsu, T., Matsunaga, D., Mikami, A. et al. Abundance of drifting seaweeds in eastern East China Sea. J Appl Phycol 20, 801–809 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-007-9302-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-007-9302-4

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