Deep-Sea Bioluminescence Blooms after Dense Water Formation at the Ocean Surface

Christian Tamburini (1) , Miquel Canals , Xavier Durrieu de Madron (2) , Loïc Houpert (2) , Dominique Lefèvre (1) , Séverine Martini (1) , Fabrizio d'Ortenzio (3) , Anne Robert (1) , Pierre Testor (4, 5) , Juan Antonio Aguilar , Imen Al Samarai (6) , Arnaud Albert (7) , Michel André , Marco Anghinolfi , Gisela Anton , Shebli Anvar (8) , Miguel Ardid , Ana Carolina Assis Jesus , Tri L. Astraatmadja , Jean-Jacques Aubert (6) , Bruny Baret (9) , Stéphane Basa (10) , Vincent Bertin (6) , Simone Biagi , Armando Bigi , Ciro Bigongiari , Claudio Bogazzi , Manuel Bou-Cabo , Boutayeb Bouhou (9) , Mieke C. Bouwhuis , Jurgen Brunner (6) , José Busto (6) , Francisco Camarena , Antonio Capone , Christina Cârloganu (11) , Giada Carminati , John Carr (6) , Stefano Cecchini , Ziad Charif (6) , Philippe Charvis (12) , Tommaso Chiarusi , Marco Circella , Rosa Coniglione , Heide Costantini (6) , Paschal Coyle (6) , Christian Curtil (6) , Patrick Decowski , Ivan Dekeyser (1) , Anne Deschamps (12) , Corinne Donzaud (9) , Damien Dornic (6) , Hasankiadeh Q. Dorosti , Doriane Drouhin (7) , Thomas Eberl , Umberto Emanuele , Jean-Pierre Ernenwein (6) , Stéphanie Escoffier (6) , Paolo Fermani , Marcelino Ferri , Vincenzo Flaminio , Florian Folger , Ulf Fritsch , Jean-Luc Fuda (1) , Salvatore Galatà (6) , Pascal Gay (11) , Giorgio Giacomelli , Valentina Giordano (13) , Juan-Pablo Gómez-González , Kay Graf , Goulven Guillard (11) , Garadeb Halladjian (6) , Gregory Hallewell (6) , Hans van Haren (14) , Joris Hartman , Aart J. Heijboer , Yann Hello (12) , Juan Jose Hernández-Rey , Bjoern Herold , Jurgen Hössl , Ching-Cheng Hsu , Marteen de Jong , Matthias Kadler , Oleg Kalekin , Alexander Kappes , Uli Katz , Oksana Kavatsyuk , Paul Kooijman , Claudio Kopper , Antoine Kouchner (9) , Ingo Kreykenbohm , Vladimir Kulikovskiy , Robert Lahmann , Patrick Lamare (8) , Giuseppina Larosa , Dario Lattuada , Gordon Lim , Domenico Lo Presti , Herbert Loehner , Sotiris Loucatos , Salvatore Mangano , Michel Marcelin (10) , Annarita Margiotta , Juan Antonio Martinez-Mora , Athina Meli , Teresa Montaruli , Luciano Moscoso (9) , Holger Motz , Max Neff , Emma Nuel Nezri , Dimitris Palioselitis , Gabriela E. Păvălaş , Kevin Payet , Patrice Payre (6) , Jelena Petrovic , Paolo Piattelli (15) , Nicolas Picot-Clemente (6) , Vlad Popa , Thierry Pradier (16) , Eleonora Presani , Chantal Racca (7) , Corey Reed , Giorgio Riccobene , Carsten Richardt , Roland Richter , Colas Rivière (6) , Kathrin Roensch , Andrei Rostovtsev , Joaquin Ruiz-Rivas , Marius Rujoiu , Valerio G. Russo , Francisco Salesa , Augustin Sánchez-Losa , Piera Sapienza (15) , Friederike Schöck , Jean-Pierre Schuller (8) , Fabian Schussler (8) , Rezo Shanidze , Francesco Simeone , Andreas Spies , Maurizio Spurio , Jos J. M. Steijger , Thierry Stolarczyk , Mauro G. F. Taiuti , Simona Toscano , Bertrand Vallage (8) , Véronique van Elewyck (9) , Giulia Vannoni , Manuela Vecchi (6) , Pascal Vernin (8) , Guus Wijnker , Jorn Wilms , Els de Wolf , Harold Yepes , Dmitry Zaborov , Juan de Dios Zornoza , Juan Zúñiga

1 MIO - Institut méditerranéen d'océanologie
2 CEFREM - Centre de Formation et de Recherche sur les Environnements Méditérranéens
3 LOV - Laboratoire d'océanographie de Villefranche
4 PHYBIOCAR - Couplage physique-biogéochimie-carbone
5 VOG - Variabilité de l'Océan et de la Glace de mer
6 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille
7 GRPHE - Groupe de Recherche en Physique des Hautes Energies
8 IRFU - Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers
9 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
10 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
11 LPC - Laboratoire de Physique Corpusculaire - Clermont-Ferrand
12 GEOAZUR 7329 - Géoazur
13 INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Catania
14 NIOZ - Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research
15 LNS - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud
16 IPHC - Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien

The deep ocean is the largest and least known ecosystem on Earth. It hosts numerous pelagic organisms, most of which are able to emit light. Here we present a unique data set consisting of a 2.5-year long record of light emission by deep-sea pelagic organisms, measured from December 2007 to June 2010 at the ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope in the deep NW Mediterranean Sea, jointly with synchronous hydrological records. This is the longest continuous time-series of deep-sea bioluminescence ever recorded. Our record reveals several weeks long, seasonal bioluminescence blooms with light intensity up to two orders of magnitude higher than background values, which correlate to changes in the properties of deep waters. Such changes are triggered by the winter cooling and evaporation experienced by the upper ocean layer in the Gulf of Lion that leads to the formation and subsequent sinking of dense water through a process known as "open-sea convection". It episodically renews the deep water of the study area and conveys fresh organic matter that fuels the deep ecosystems. Luminous bacteria most likely are the main contributors to the observed deep-sea bioluminescence blooms. Our observations demonstrate a consistent and rapid connection between deep open-sea convection and bathypelagic biological activity, as expressed by bioluminescence. In a setting where dense water formation events are likely to decline under global warming scenarios enhancing ocean stratification, in situ observatories become essential as environmental sentinels for the monitoring and understanding of deep-sea ecosystem shifts.

Keywords: Mediterranean Sea; Bioluminescence; Deep sea; Neutrinos; Convection; Salinity; Sea water; Oceans

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Earth Sciences; Oceanography; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Biological Physics [physics.bio-ph]

Christian Tamburini, Miquel Canals, Xavier Durrieu de Madron, Loïc Houpert, Dominique Lefèvre, et al.. Deep-Sea Bioluminescence Blooms after Dense Water Formation at the Ocean Surface. PLoS ONE, 2013, 8 (7), pp.e67523. ⟨10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0067523⟩. ⟨hal-01012135⟩