![]() These adaptations point to the need for extremely high-density regions in order for these species to survive and reproduce. Even more strikingly, Glaucus and possibly some species of Janthina must also be in physical contact to mate. Predatory obligate neuston such as the blue sea dragon Glaucus and the violet snails Janthina also lack the ability to direct their movement and must physically bump into prey in order to feed. ![]() Many obligate neuston, including foundational members of the neuston food web, Physalia, Velella, and Porpita, are incapable of swimming or directional movement. Obligate neuston, subjected to the same oceanographic forces that move buoyant man-made waste and pollutants, may also be concentrated in “garbage patches.” We hypothesize that these regions could be neuston seas, like the Sargasso Sea, and could provide similarly critical ecological and economic roles.Ĭonvergence of obligate neustonic life into high densities may be critical for many neustonic species and the organisms that depend on them. Plastic pollution, transported by the same surface currents that transport neuston, provides a clue: Large amounts of floating debris are transported to and concentrated in “garbage patches” identified in all 5 main subtropical gyres, including the North Atlantic (the Sargasso Sea), South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, North Pacific, and South Pacific. But is the Sargasso Sea the only region of the world’s oceans where floating life concentrates? The Sargasso Sea is critical to the ecology of the North Atlantic and provides millions to billions of US dollars in ecosystem services annually. The Sargasso Sea is named for the neustonic Sargassum algae and is a marine biodiversity hotspot supported by neuston. Many genera of neuston are globally distributed, but currently only 1 ocean region is known to concentrate neuston into high densities. (e) Top-down view of the blue sea dragons Glaucus sp. (d) Side view of violet snail Janthina sp. (c) Side view of Portuguese man-o-war Physalia sp. (b) Top-down view of blue button Porpita sp. ![]() ![]() (a) Top-down view of by-the-wind sailor Velella sp. The neustonic organisms represented in this study, based on. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.įig 1. All raw images and processed images are deposited in Zenodo (doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7510473 ).įunding: This work was supported by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration grants (80NSSC21K0857 to NM, JH, and RH 80NSSC17K0559 to NM and JH and NNX17AH43G to NM and JH). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ĭata Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Received: ApAccepted: FebruPublished: May 4, 2023Ĭopyright: © 2023 Chong et al. ![]() Tanentzap, University of Cambridge, UNITED KINGDOM PLoS Biol 21(5):Īcademic Editor: Andrew J. Citation: Chong F, Spencer M, Maximenko N, Hafner J, McWhirter AC, Helm RR (2023) High concentrations of floating neustonic life in the plastic-rich North Pacific Garbage Patch. ![]()
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