Fig. 12. Distribution of swallowiny 

 detritophages on the shelf of the 

 East China Sea. 1, Swallowing 

 detritophages present in bottom- 

 digger samples; 2, absent. 



This similarity is further increased by the agreement of disruptions in 

 the trophic structure with the low-productivity Kuroshio waters. 



A similar phenomenon was detected on the shelf of the Great Bay of 

 Australia (Neyman, 1970). This shelf is rather narrow, its main area 

 occupied by a zone of predominance of sestonophages (see Fig. 10c), 

 while the zone of gatherers is shifted to the very edge of the shelf. 

 In terms of morphology and distribution of trophic zones, this shelf is 

 similar to the shelf of western Kamchatka, where the zone of 

 predominance of gatherers is also found at the very edge of the shelf, 

 while the zone of swallowers is shifted to the upper portion of the 

 slope (Neyman, 1969b). However, on the western Kamchatka shelf, with 

 predominance of sestonophages (in places they represent 90% of the total 

 biomass), practically every station brings up significant numbers of 

 gatherers and swallowers, the biomass of which represents 5-lOX of the 

 total biomass. In the Great Bay of Australia, gatherers are found at 

 only 60% of stations, swallowers at 25%, while at 40% of stations, 

 neither is found. The Great Bay of Australia, like the East China Sea, 

 contains subtropical waters of low productivity, and here also we see 

 oligotrophic aspects in the structure of the benthos. However, there 

 are no disruptions of trophic zonal ity here. 



We might think that the oligotrophic structure of the benthos would 

 be a general property of the benthos of tropical shelf areas. However, 

 data on the benthos of the shelves of the northern Indian Ocean (Neyman, 

 1969a) have shown that in areas under productive waters (regardless of 

 the reasons for the increase in productivity), the structure of the 

 benthos is eutrophic, while in areas under lean waters, it is 

 oligotrophic. Data on the benthos of the Bay of Persia (Neyman, 

 Kondritskiy, 1974) do not fit into this scheme--in spite of the high 

 productivity of the waters, the benthos of this bay has oligotrophic 

 features. 



Up to now, an oligotrophic benthos structure on shelves has been 

 detected only where the temperature of the water just above the bottom 

 remains above 13°C throughout the year. In cold waters, even with a 



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