Catastrophic Transition in Vertical Distributions of Phytoplankton: Alternative Equilibria in a Water Column

Yoshiyama, Kohei; Nakajima, Hisao

doi:10.1006/jtbi.2002.3007

Cited by 42 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Theoretical investigations suggest indeed that the presence or absence of a stratified water column below the mixed surface layer may have major implications for nutrient and plankton dynamics in the mixed layer (Diehl 2002). Future studies of mixing depth effects on plankton dynamics should therefore clearly distinguish between those two situations (Huisman and Sommeijer 2002;Yoshiyama and Nakajima 2002).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa in a gradient of mixing depths

Ptáčník

Diehl

Berger

2003

Limnology & Oceanography

105

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According to a recent dynamical model, the depth of a well-mixed water column should have contrasting effects on the abundances of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa. Because of increasing light limitation, nonsinking taxa should decline monotonically with increasing mixing depth, and because of sinking loss limitation at low mixing depths, sinking taxa should peak at intermediate mixing depths. Along a gradient of mixing depths, the position of this maximum should increase with increasing taxon-specific sinking velocity and decrease with increasing background turbidity. In two field-enclosure experiments, we investigated the effects of mixing depth and background turbidity on a variety of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa. We exposed the natural, 100-mscreened phytoplankton community of a clear, unproductive, but silica-rich lake to a gradient of mixing depths (1.5-15 m) during 4-6 weeks. To mimic two different background turbidities, the transparent enclosure walls were surrounded by either white or black foliage. Although diatoms suffered from high sedimentation losses at low mixing depths, they dominated biomass at all mixing depths throughout both experiments. Results were largely in accordance with model predictions. Specific gross growth rates of most common taxa were negatively related to mixing depth. In both experiments, the abundances of most sinking taxa showed a unimodal pattern along the mixing depth gradient, while two of three motile taxa declined monotonically with mixing depth. The depths where these taxa reached their maximal abundances were positively related to taxon-specific sinking velocity and negatively related to background turbidity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa in a gradient of mixing depths

Ptáčník

Diehl

Berger

2003

Limnology & Oceanography

105

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“…Numerical models have established the role of intraspecific competition for light and nutrients, caused by the upward and downward fluxes of nutrients and light, respectively, in determining DCMs [Klausmeier and Litchman, 2001]. This model has been included in subsequent simulation exercises [Mellard et al, 2011;Ryabov et al, 2010;Yoshiyama and Nakajima, 2002].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hysteresis conditions the vertical position of deep chlorophyll maximum in the temperate ocean

Navarro

Ruiz

2013

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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[1] Deep chlorophyll maxima (DCMs) are widespread features of oceans. In temperate regions, DCMs are commonly associated with isopycnal surfaces that frequently move over a wide vertical range. This general association between DCMs and isopycnals remains unexplained by present theories, and we show here that it emerges from the seasonal history of the water column. Analysis of the formation of more than 9000 seasonal DCMs throughout the world's oceans consistently locates the vertical position of spring/summer DCMs in temperate seas at the density of the previous winter mixed layer, independently of this density value and future depth. These results indicate that DCM formation cannot be understood without hysteresis by solely considering the instantaneous response of phytoplankton to vertical gradients in physical and chemical fields. Present theories for DCM formation cannot explain why spring and summer DCMs are systematically found at a density equal to that of the previous mixed layer where a bloom has occurred. Rather than reacting to instantaneous physical forcing, the results indicate that DCMs operate as self-preserving biological structures that are associated with particular isopycnals because of their capacity to modify the physicochemical environment. Combined with remote sensors to measure salinity and temperature in the surface ocean, this new understanding of DCM dynamics has the potential to improve the quantification of three-dimensional primary production via satellites. This significant enhancement of the representation of oceanic biological processes can also allow increasingly realistic predictions of future biogeochemical scenarios in a warming ocean.

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“…From a dynamical point of view, there is a common mechanism for bloom and regime shift: namely, that some external effects cause a change of state within a dynamical system with multiple stable states (Scheffer et al, 2001;Yoshiyama and Nakajima, 2002;Amemiya et al, 2007). The first conceptual models of bloom and regime shifts were based on bi-stable systems of single populations, that have been extended to coupled models of two or more species (Collie et al, 2004), and investigated how changing control parameters of the ecosystem dynamics can trigger jumps between the stable states.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plankton bloom controlled by horizontal stirring

McKiver

Neufeld

Scheuring

2009

Nonlin. Processes Geophys.

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Abstract.Here we show a simple mechanism in which changes in the rate of horizontal stirring by mesoscale ocean eddies can trigger or suppress plankton blooms and can lead to an abrupt change in the average plankton density. We consider a single species phytoplankton model with logistic growth, grazing and a spatially non-uniform carrying capacity. The local dynamics have multiple steady states for some values of the carrying capacity that can lead to localized blooms as fluid moves across the regions with different properties. We show that for this model even small changes in the ratio of biological timescales relative to the flow timescales can greatly enhance or reduce the global plankton productivity. Thus, this may be a possible mechanism in which changes in horizontal mixing can trigger plankton blooms or cause regime shifts in some oceanic regions. Comparison between the spatially distributed model and Lagrangian simulations considering temporal fluctuations along fluid trajectories, demonstrates that small scale transport processes also play an important role in the development of plankton blooms with a significant influence on global biomass.

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Catastrophic Transition in Vertical Distributions of Phytoplankton: Alternative Equilibria in a Water Column

Cited by 42 publications

References 52 publications

Performance of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa in a gradient of mixing depths

Performance of sinking and nonsinking phytoplankton taxa in a gradient of mixing depths

Hysteresis conditions the vertical position of deep chlorophyll maximum in the temperate ocean

Plankton bloom controlled by horizontal stirring

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