Modelling studies on a marine plankton community : biological, temporal and spatial structure

• Main Author: Christian, James Robert
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2010
• Subjects: Marine plankton; Marine ecology > Mathematical models; Biotic communities > Mathematical models
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/27859

The SELECT model (Frost, 1982) is analyzed, criticized, and extended to embrace new information about the feeding behaviour of copepods and the structure of the planktonic food web in a series of alternative models. Diel variations in photosynthesis, grazing, and predation on copepods (temporal structure) and patchiness of zooplankton and their predators (spatial structure) are modelled in other variants. It is observed that the vertical, temporal, and (horizontal) spatial structure of the planktonic ecosystem are important components of ecosystem models that can not safely be ignored. It is further observed that a convincing mechanism for the termination of diatom blooms is lacking and should be a subject of intensive research, and that the status of chlorophyll-containing microflagellates as phototrophs is questionable and should be reconsidered. === Science, Faculty of === Zoology, Department of === Graduate