Data for: Linking vertical movements of large pelagic predators with distribution patterns of biomass in the open ocean

Many predator species make regular excursions from near-surface waters to
the twilight (200-1,000 m) and midnight (1,000-3,000 m) zones of the deep
pelagic ocean. While the occurrence of significant vertical movements into
the deep ocean has evolved independently across taxonomic groups, the
functional role(s) and ecological significance of these movements remain
poorly understood. Here, we integrate results from satellite tagging
efforts with model-predictions of deep prey layers in the North Atlantic
Ocean to determine if prey distributions are correlated with vertical
habitat use across 12 species of predators. Using 3D movement data for 344
individuals that traversed nearly 1.5 million km of pelagic ocean in
>42,000 days, we found that nearly every tagged predator frequented
the twilight zone and many made regular trips to the midnight zone. Using
a predictive model, we found clear alignment of predator depth use with
the expected location of deep pelagic prey for at least half of the
predator species. We compared high-resolution predator data with shipboard
acoustics and selected representative matches that highlight the
opportunities and challenges in the analysis and synthesis of these data.
While not all observed behavior was consistent with estimated prey
availability at depth, our results suggest that deep pelagic biomass
likely has high ecological value for a suite of commercially important
predators in the open ocean. Careful consideration of the disruption to
ecosystem services provided by pelagic food webs is needed before the
potential costs and benefits of proceeding with extractive activities in
the deep ocean can be evaluated.