The land‐ocean dissolved organic carbon (DOC) flux represents a significant term within the global carbon budget, with peatland‐dominated regions representing the most intense sources of terrestrial DOC export. As the interface between freshwater and marine systems, estuaries have the potential to act as a filter of the land‐ocean carbon flux, removing terrestrially derived DOC, which is present at low concentrations in the oc...

Non-native salmonids are protected in the Southern hemisphere where they sustain aquaculture and lucrative sport fisheries, but also impact many native fishes, which poses a conservation conundrum. Legal protection and human-assisted secondary releases may have helped salmonids to spread, but this has seldom been tested. We reconstructed the introduction of brown trout ( Salmo trutta ) to the Falkland Islands using historical...

Marine protected areas (MPAs), particularly large MPAs, are increasing in number and size around the globe in part to facilitate the conservation of marine megafauna under the assumption that large-scale MPAs better align with vagile life histories; however, this alignment is not well established. Using a global tracking dataset from 36 species across five taxa, chosen to reflect the span of home range size in highly mobile ma...

Epinephelus adscensionis sampled from Ascension Island, South Atlantic Ocean, exhibits distinct life‐history traits, including larger maximum size and size at sexual maturity than previous studies have demonstrated for this species in other locations. Otolith analysis yielded a maximum estimated age of 25 years, with calculated von Bertalanffy growth parameters of: L ∞ = 55·14, K = 0·19, t 0 = −0·88. Monthly gonad staging and...

Commercial fisheries data, collected as part of an observer programme and covering the period 1997–2014, were utilized in order to define key reproductive traits and spawning dynamics of the Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides at South Georgia. Multi‐year spawning site fidelity of D. eleginoides was revealed through the identification of previously unknown spawning hotspots. Timing of female spawning was shown to hav...

This study describes the spawning of the fatheads Psychrolutes marmoratus and Cottunculus granulosus , two psychrolutid species that inhabit the shelf edge and continental slope of the south‐west Atlantic. Females lay large eggs of c. 2·5 mm ( P. marmoratus ) and 4·5–5·0 mm ( C. granulosus ); fecundity is from the hundreds ( C. granulosus ) to a few thousand eggs ( P. marmoratus ). Egg maturation is synchronous in P. marmoratu...

Seasonal changes in relative abundance and biomass of nektonic predators were analysed on the eastern Patagonian Shelf and continental slope; one of the most productive large marine ecosystems of the southern hemisphere. Several migratory types were revealed for species belonging to either temperate or sub‐Antarctic faunas. Despite high productivity, only a few large nektonic predators spend their entire life cycle on the east...

The eastern Patagonian Shelf and continental slope of the south‐west Atlantic Ocean support a high biodiversity and abundance of skates. In this study, meso‐scale differences in the assemblages, spatial and seasonal distributions of skates are revealed among six habitat zones of the eastern Patagonian Shelf characterized by distinctive oceanographic conditions. Most skates belonged to temperate fauna, and their abundance was m...

Population characteristics of the Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides were investigated based on material collected from both trawl and longline fisheries in Falkland Islands’ waters. The fish occurred between 56 and 2122 m and attained 225 cm total length ( L T ). Males matured earlier, L T at 50% maturity was 86 cm for males v . 90 cm for females. Subadult fish foraged at depths of 600 m. Spawning occurred on slope...

The reproductive biology of Eleginops maclovinus was examined in the Falkland Islands between October 2000 and December 2002. Males predominated at total lengths ( L T ) of 10 to 52 cm and females at >53 cm L T . Length frequency analysis showed a bimodal distribution with females representing the larger mode for every month during the study period. Gonad histology revealed that 19% of the histological samples studied were con...

The diet change with size, season and area was investigated using the stomachs of 496 kingclip Genypterus blacodes collected around the Falkland Islands (south‐west Atlantic) between August 2001 and September 2002. The key prey species were rockcod Patagonotothen spp., benthic isopods and Patagonian grenadier Macruronus magellanicus . Kingclip L T ) fed mainly on crustaceans and small fishes. With size the diet shifted away fr...

The ontogenetic and seasonal variations in the feeding spectrum were studied in 756 specimens of the Patagonian toothfish Dissostichus eleginoides (16–159 cm total length, L T ) collected on the shelf, continental slope and bathyal waters (67–1960 m, depth range) around the Falkland Islands between April 1999 and August 2002. On the shelf, small toothfish ( L T ) were active predators taking mostly one relatively large prey it...

The manefish Caristius groenlandicus , the spiny eel Notacanthus sexspinis , the cutthroat eel Diastobranchus capensis and the Giant Grenadier Albatrossia pectoralis are new records for the waters of the Falkland Islands, and the latter is a new record in the Atlantic Ocean.