Importance of stirring in the development of an iron-fertilized phytoplankton bloom

Edward R. Abraham (), Cliff S. Law, Philip W. Boyd, Samantha J. Lavender, Maria T. Maldonado and Andrew R. Bowie
Additional contact information
Edward R. Abraham: National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA)
Cliff S. Law: Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Philip W. Boyd: NIWA Centre for Chemical and Physical Oceanography, University of Otago
Samantha J. Lavender: Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Maria T. Maldonado: McGill University
Andrew R. Bowie: Plymouth Marine Laboratory

Nature, 2000, vol. 407, issue 6805, 727-730

Abstract: Abstract The growth of populations is known to be influenced by dispersal, which has often been described as purely diffusive1,2. In the open ocean, however, the tendrils and filaments of phytoplankton populations provide evidence for dispersal by stirring3,4. Despite the apparent importance of horizontal stirring for plankton ecology, this process remains poorly characterized. Here we investigate the development of a discrete phytoplankton bloom, which was initiated by the iron fertilization of a patch of water (7 km in diameter) in the Southern Ocean5. Satellite images show a striking, 150-km-long bloom near the experimental site, six weeks after the initial fertilization. We argue that the ribbon-like bloom was produced from the fertilized patch through stirring, growth and diffusion, and we derive an estimate of the stirring rate. In this case, stirring acts as an important control on bloom development, mixing phytoplankton and iron out of the patch, but also entraining silicate. This may have prevented the onset of silicate limitation, and so allowed the bloom to continue for as long as there was sufficient iron. Stirring in the ocean is likely to be variable, so blooms that are initially similar may develop very differently.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35037555 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:407:y:2000:i:6805:d:10.1038_35037555

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35037555

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().