phytoplankton communities

• Main Authors: E. Litchman, C. A. Klausmeier, J. R. Miller, O. M. Schofield, P. G. Falkowski
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Pacific; North Atlantic; Subarctic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.664.3757; http://preston.kbs.msu.edu/reprints/files/litchman+et+al+2006.pdf

Abstract. Phytoplankton community composition pro-foundly affects patterns of nutrient cycling and the dynamics of marine food webs; therefore predicting present and future phytoplankton community structure is crucial to understand how ocean ecosystems respond to physical forcing and nu-trient limitations. We develop a mechanistic model of phy-toplankton communities that includes multiple taxonomic groups (diatoms, coccolithophores and prasinophytes), nu-trients (nitrate, ammonium, phosphate, silicate and iron), light, and a generalist zooplankton grazer. Each taxonomic group was parameterized based on an extensive literature survey. We test the model at two contrasting sites in the modern ocean, the North Atlantic (North Atlantic Bloom Ex-periment, NABE) and subarctic North Pacific (ocean station Papa, OSP). The model successfully predicts general patterns