The emergence of regularity and variability in marine ecosystems: the combined role of physics, chemistry and biology

Abstract

SUMMARY: Marine ecosystems play an integral role in the functioning of life on earth. To predict how they will respond to global changes, and to effectively manage and maintain services upon which humans rely, we must understand how biological processes at the cellular level generate macroscopic patterns in the oceans. Here, we discuss how physics and biogeochemistry influence and constrain marine ecosystem structure and function, and outline key regularities and patterns of variability that models should aim to reproduce. We identify unanswered questions regarding how size-dependent physiological and ecological processes are linked to turbulent mixing, dealing specifically with how size structure is related to mixing over a range of spatial scales and how it is linked to the fate of primary production in the sea.Keywords: variability, turbulence, scaling, abundance, trophic interactions, modelling. RESUMEN: La aparición de regularidades y variabilidad en ecosistemas marinos: el papel combinado de la física, la química y la biología. -Los ecosistemas marinos juegan un papel integral en el funcionamiento de la vida sobre la Tierra. Para predecir cómo van a responder a cambios globales y para mantener los servicios de los cuales los humanos dependemos, tenemos que comprender cómo los procesos biológicos a nivel celular generan patrones macroscópicos en el océano. Examinamos cómo la física y la biogeoquímica afectan y limitan la estructura y función de los ecosistemas marinos, y exponemos importantes regularidades y patrones de variabilidad que los modelos deberían reproducir. Identificamos aspectos sin resolver sobre la relación entre procesos fisiológicos y ecológicos y la mezcla turbulenta. En concreto, cómo la estructura de tamaños está relacionada con la mezcla en un rango de escalas espaciales y cómo está conectada con el destino de la producción primaria en el mar.

Physical and biogeochemical spatial scales of variability in the East Australian Current separation from shelf glider measurements

“…These short scales of variability for BGC are in agreement with the effect of nutrient cycling, reproductive rate, and community interaction (e.g. grazing pressure from zooplankton) that can lead to patches of 5-10 km (Ballantyne et al, 2011;Denman et al, 1977;Goebel et al, 2014). According to Mahadevan and Campbell (2002), the fine-scale patchy distribution of phytoplankton is linked to the short characteristic time in response to disturbance in their concentration, as opposed to the longer time for temperature to adjust to external forcing.…”

“…While wind, topography, or density-driven processes mostly influence the mixing and advection of the physical characteristics (temperature and salinity) of the shelf water masses, locally acting ecological processes are also determinant for biogeochemistry (Ballantyne et al, 2011). In particular, the numerous mechanisms driving phytoplankton distributions have been studied for many years, and highlight the complexity of these interactions (Martin, 2003).…”

Climate change‐related regime shifts have altered spatial synchrony of plankton dynamics in the North Sea

“…Plankton populations influence the survival and breeding success of higher predators of economic and conservation importance (Davis et al ., ; Menden‐Deuer & Grünbaum, ), including cod (Beaugrand et al ., ), haddock (Platt et al ., ), tuna (Fiedler & Bernard, ), marine mammals (Weise et al ., ), penguins (Boersma et al ., ), and other seabirds (Rindorf et al ., ). Spatial patchiness, and therefore synchrony in plankton, affects consumer–resource particle encounter rates, and can thereby also affect nutrient cycling and carbon export to deep ocean layers (Goldthwait et al ., ; Ballantyne et al ., ; Prairie et al ., ). Consequences of changes in synchrony for these processes may be complex (Powell & Okubo, ; Grünbaum, ; Franks, ; Ballantyne et al ., ).…”

Biophysical interactions in the plankton: A cross‐scale review

“…Likewise, transport of fluid via Darwinian drift by vertically migrating plankton (Katija and Dabiri 2009) would be expected to occur on scales similar to the distance traveled by the organisms. However, a critical next step is to understand how processes can connect across scales in order to build intuition about plankton ecology (Ballantyne et al 2011). Next, we discuss the potential for biophysical interactions to affect plankton processes at much larger scales and for large‐scale dynamics to influence processes at smaller scales (see Fig.…”