An empirical model for the prediction of secondary production in marine benthic invertebrate populations

An exlsting marine benthos production model based on population charactenstics, and a freshwater invertebrate production model, based on population charactenstics and temperature, were tested for apphcabihty to manne benthos populations from around the world The freshwater model makes poor predictions of marine secondary production while the manne model makes better predictions but errors are correlated with both water temperature and water depth A new manne benthos production model is therefore constructed that accounts for world-wide vanatlon in benthos biomass, individual body mass, water temperature and depth This mult~variate analysls shows that secondary production nses with blomass (B) as -B1 as others have found and production varies wlth population maximum body mass (W,) as as suggested by allometnc theory The strong effect of temperature ~ndicates that the Qloof secondary production is between 2 and 2 5 The effect of depth is strongly negative, suggesting that food quality may be lower at greater depth but the effect of depth is lessened in cold seas Residual analyses accounting for the influences of biomass, body mass, temperature and depth suggest that anthropogenically enriched regions of the sea are more productive than oligotrophic waters Our results suggest that rare, large animals living in the depths of cold seas support the lowest rates of exploitation and are thus at greatest nsk of extinction from overexploitation