Ocean Scale Hypoxia-Based Habitat Compression of Atlantic Istiophorid Billfishes

No abstracts are to be cited without prior reference to the author.

Oxygen minimum zones have been reported to occur as distinct strata in large equatorial areas of the eastern tropical Pacific (ETP) and Atlantic oceans. In the ETP, this stratum restricts the depth distribution of high oxygen demand tropical pelagic marlins, sailfish, and tunas by compressing the suitable physical habitat into a narrow surface layer (i.e. habitat compression). This surface mixed layer is defined by a shallow thermocline, above a barrier of cold hypoxic water, where dissolved oxygen (DO) levels are