Turbulence increases the average settling velocity of phytoplankton cells.

نویسندگان

  • Javier Ruiz
  • Diego Macías
  • Francesc Peters
چکیده

It is a well known fact that stirring keeps particles suspended in fluids. This is apparent, for instance, when shaking medicine flasks, when agitating tea deposits in a mug, or when heavy winds fill the air with dust particles. The commonplace nature of such observations makes it easy to accept that this feature will apply to any natural phenomenon as long as the flow is turbulent enough. This has been the case for phytoplankton in the surface mixed layers of lakes and oceans. The traditional view assumes that an increase in turbulence bears ecological advantages for nonmotile groups like diatoms that, otherwise, would settle in deep and unlit waters. However, this assumption has no theoretical ground, and the experimental results we present here point in the opposite direction. Phytoplankton settling velocity increases when turbulence intensifies from the low to the higher values recorded in the upper mixed layers of lakes and oceans. Consequently, turbulence does not favor phytoplankton remaining in lit waters but is rather an environmental stress that can only be avoided through morphological and/or physiological adaptations.

برای دانلود رایگان متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Microscale Complexity in the Ocean: Turbulence, Intermittency and Plankton Life

This contribution reviews the nonlinear stochastic properties of turbulent velocity and passive scalar intermittent fluctuations in Eulerian and Lagrangian turbulence. These properties are illustrated with original data sets of (i) velocity fluctuations collected in the field and in the laboratory, and (ii) temperature, salinity and in vivo fluorescence (a proxy of phytoplankton biomass, i.e. u...

متن کامل

Influence of water-column depth and mixing on phytoplankton biomass, community composition, and nutrients

We independently manipulated mixing intensity (strong artificial mixing vs. background turbulence) and water-column depth (2 m, 4 m, 8 m, and 12 m) in order to explore their separate and combined effects in a field enclosure experiment. To accentuate the vertical light gradient, enclosures had black walls, resulting in a euphotic depth of only 3.7 m. All enclosures were placed in a well-mixed w...

متن کامل

A New Approach for Obtaining Settling Velocity in a Thickener Using Statistical Regression: A Case Study

In this research work, the parameters affecting the settling velocity within the thickeners were studied by introducing an equivalent shape factor. Several thickener feed samples of different densities including copper, lead and zinc, and coal were prepared. The settling tests were performed on the samples, and the corresponding settling curves were plotted. Using the linear regression analysis...

متن کامل

Population dynamics of sinking phytoplankton in stratified waters

We analyze the predictions of a reaction advection di usion model to pinpoint the nec essary conditions for bloom development of sinking phytoplankton species in strati ed waters This reveals that there are two parameter windows that can sustain sinking phytoplankton a turbulence window and a thermocline depth window The two win dows are delimited by four critical parameters a minimal and maxim...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

عنوان ژورنال:
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

دوره 101 51  شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2004