Have you ever wondered what the water temperature was like at the bottom of the ocean? Recently we were wondering this same question. If winter flounder move into estuaries in the late fall to spawn and out of the estuaries in the spring, using temperature as a trigger, would an offshore resident population feel this temperature change? What would be their cue when it came time to spawn? In the deep water, greater than 100m light is greatly diminished so they would not be able to tell if there was a change in season.
Here is a video made with model data from the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) based out of Rutgers. Currently this is made with model data that are a few degrees warmer at the bottom than in actuality but you still get the idea…The red box on the movie is where we released our tagged winter flounder
Comments are closed.