Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS36 Dealing With Scales in Aquatic Ecology: Structure and Function in Aquatic Ecosystems (Spatial and Temporal Connections)

Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2001, Time: 10:15:00 AM

Location: San Miguel

Cowles, T, J, Oregon State University, Corvallis OR, USA, tjc@oce.orst.edu

Barth, J, A, Oregon State University, Corvallis OR, USA, barth@oce.orst.edu

SCALES OF MARINE PLANKTONIC PATTERN IN TIME AND SPACE: PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL LINKAGES

Oceanic observations with free-fall profilers and towed instrumentation systems now provide coincident physical and biological data across a wide range of time and space scales. We use physical and biological data obtained from the protected coastal waters of Orcas Island WA, the continental shelf waters off Oregon, and the open ocean of the Antarctic Polar Front, across spatial scales of centimeters to kilometers, to examine the hypothesis that linkages between scales are not hierarchical but driven by a continuum of coupled physical and biological processes that must be defined in four dimensions. In particular, we use our observations of the link between vertical plankton pattern and the vertical structure of horizontal velocity to suggest that analysis of planktonic pattern must include horizontal as well as vertical processes. Our results indicate the critical need for coincident physical and biological observations under a range of physical forcing conditions.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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