In waters adjacent to the south-western coasts of Japan, especially on the coast banks off Kyushu, it has long been recognized that the dark green or gray, large, formless suspended organic matter appears from late autumn to early summer in every year. According to reports from pelagic fishing boats of the Japanese bonito and tuna fishery, we can know on naturally occurring of the larger suspended organic matter in oceanic water of the Warm Current of Kuroshio.
Although the people of the Japanese bonito fishery and tuna fishery had for a long time known about occurring seasons and areas of the matter, and any investigation on the mechanism and place of generation of such suspended organic matter has never been researched scientifically. In offshore waters of the Goto Islands of the western Kyushu and in almost every year, the larger organic matter can be seen intermittently in the surface-layer or at the surface of the waters near by the Goto Islands. The people in this district call the appearance of the larger organic matter “Shiogusare has come” when this appears.
Fishermen of the Pelagic fishery of bonito and tuna find often this kind of suspended organic matters much in offshore waters of the western part of the North Pacific Ocean, several hundreds miles far off the coast and in the Eastern Sea. It is called “Yogore” as its another name, and the people of the sett net fishery of the coastal regions and sailors of the coastal lines call it “Nuta”. It is popularly known that there is some relationship between the app6arance of “Nuta i. e. Shiogusare” and the fishing conditions, while not only as the nature or constituent of itself but also about the mechanism of appearance is not known clearly.
Some people say the appearance of the matter is bad for the fishery, but others say it is good. The author can consider that the suspended organic matter has at least some relations to fishing conditions, for instance, it seems that the season of its appearance relates closely to oceanographic conditions and meteorological conditions.
On the other hand, when the matter appears the anchor rope of vessels and fishing nets are stickled with them and are hastened to decay. In this point of view, fishermen and sailors think them unprofittable. The author had the wish to make a through investigation of nature of the matter and mechanism of the appearance, and then got a chance when he could find a generating state of the matter during the oceanographic research on the Goto Nada area held in April 1948.
Since that time, he has biologically studied about the naturally suspended organic matter, and as he got some of knowledge, he will report on the matter. Owing to some conclusions drawn by him, it became clear that they belong to a kind of materials of plankton origin, as some results of microscopic examination on the structure of the materials collected. And at first he tried to research the biological construction and the origin of the matter. The larger suspended organic matter found in waters adjacent to Kyushu is formed after explosive multiplication of plankton, and then in the view of the biotic structure the matter consists of two constituents, the one is matrix, the other plankton community. These constituents are represented in Figures and Plate 1. As mentioned above, it follows that the larger suspended organic matter is formed out of plankton in the water mass in which plankton population grows explosively.
View full abstract