(e.g., nutrient source, aggregation area)
Marine ecosystems are largely comprised of static habitats that are present throughout the year. However, there are also dynamic habitats that vary over space and time, including upwelling areas, nearshore fronts, and breeding aggregation areas. These dynamic habitats are important to marine ecosystems and often represent areas of high primary productivity and/or large aggregations of multiple species and trophic levels. When and where these dynamic habitats are located can influence the expected impact on the ecosystem.
We show that ocean fronts set recruitment patterns among both community-building invertebrates and commercially important fishes in nearshore intertidal and rocky reef habitats. Chlorophyll concentration and recruitment of several species of intertidal invertebrates (Balanus spp., Chthamalus spp., Mytilus spp.) and rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) are positively correlated with front probability along the coast of the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem. Abundances of recent settlers and adults for nearshore rockfish species are also positively correlated with front probability.