A squid mystery in Mexican waters is unraveled by a Stanford biologist and a class of biology stude…

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http://news.stanford.edu/news/2011/november/gilly-humboldt-squid-111711.html

Stanford Report, November 17, 2011

A squid mystery in Mexican waters is unraveled by a Stanford biologist and a class of biology students

Stanford marine biologist William Gilly is studying Humboldt squid in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, where the creatures have been spawning at a much younger age and a far smaller size than normal. El Niño is apparently to blame.

BY LOUIS BERGERON

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In May 2010 Gilly was in the Sea of Cortez – one of the biologically richest marine environments in the world – with a biology class of Stanford undergraduates when they discovered that the squid, usually present in such large numbers that they are a staple species of the local fishing industry, were largely missing from their usual haunts.

"There were far fewer of them than normal, they were spread out over a huge area and they were very small. But they were also sexually mature and spawning – at a ridiculously small size," Gilly said.

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Searching the Sea of Cortez a month later on a research cruise, Gilly and two of the students eventually found large squid in an area about 100 miles farther north than usual, near the Midriff Islands, where Gilly suspects they had migrated in search of food.

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But during an El Niño, warm nutrient-poor tropical water from the open ocean flows into the Sea of Cortez and pushes cooler water down 150 feet or more below the surface. The usual upwelling, driven by the wind, is not strong enough to pull the cool, nutritious water back up. So the upwelling just recycles the warmer water, causing the phytoplankton population – and all the creatures that depend on it – to crash.

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[ensho]

1. interesting

thanks