It is widely known that eddies and their attendant fronts play an important role in oceanic biological processes and may constitute a unique pelagic habitat for larvae. Previous studies that we conducted in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) region showed that the variability in the Loop Current and anticyclonic ring field was reflected on the larval fish distribution of some species, likely associated to the boundaries of the latter features. To date, however, there has been only very limited studies in the region using satellite data to assess the influence of smaller mesoscale features on larvae assemblages. Our primary goal in this study is to explore the effect of the divergence and convergence associated to cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies on the complex variability of larval fish assemblages in the northern GOM. To complement visual eddy detection techniques, we use the footprint that cyclonic and anticyclonic eddies leave in sea surface height, temperature, and chlorophyll a, basically by analyzing satellite altimetry fields and applying the Okubo-Weiss parameter

2012 Ocean Sciences Meeting, 20-24 February 2012, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Peer reviewed