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Comments on “The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni): biology, ecology, and life history in the Ross Sea region,” by S. Hanchet et al.

(Hydrobiologia, 2015, 761:397–414)

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An Opinion Paper to this article was published on 24 February 2016

The Original Article was published on 02 September 2015

Abstract

We expand the paper by Hanchet et al. (Hydrobiologia 761:397–414, 2015), published in Hydrobiologia, by elaborating upon neutral buoyancy, a critical aspect of Antarctic toothfish life history that was only briefly treated by those authors. Neutral buoyancy, although not common among adult notothenioid fish, is an attribute that expands the water column niche space of this species beyond that available to the bottom-dwelling toothfish that were emphasized in the review. Conversely, also not well covered in the review are the implications involved in the suspected absence of neutral buoyancy in the so-called post-spawning, fat-depleted “axe-handle” fish.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the experience of working in the Ross Sea, and elsewhere in the Southern Ocean, through the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Antarctic Program, and the US Antarctic Marine Living Resources Program. DGA’s time in preparation of this paper was funded by NSF grant ANT-0944411. CMB was supported by the Price Fellowship and the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources. C. W. Evans, R. J. Hofman, M. La Mesa, J. Rotella, and two anonymous reviewers offered important comments to improve the manuscript. We thank them all.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. H.T. Harvey & Associates Ecological Consultants, Los Gatos, CA, 95032, USA

    David G. Ainley

  2. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Ohio University, Athens, OH, 45701, USA

    Joseph T. Eastman

  3. Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Cassandra M. Brooks

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  1. David G. Ainley
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  2. Joseph T. Eastman
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Correspondence to David G. Ainley.

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Ainley, D.G., Eastman, J.T. & Brooks, C.M. Comments on “The Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni): biology, ecology, and life history in the Ross Sea region,” by S. Hanchet et al.. Hydrobiologia 771, 1–7 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-015-2607-4

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