Articles | Volume 18, issue 20
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5595-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Special issue:
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-5595-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
18 Oct 2021
Research article |
| 18 Oct 2021
| 18 Oct 2021
Grazing behavior and winter phytoplankton accumulation
MIT-WHOI Joint Program in Oceanography & Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, Cambridge, MA, USA
Alexandre Mignot
Mercator Ocean International, Ramonville-Saint-Agne, France
Glenn Flierl
Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
Raffaele Ferrari
Department of Earth Atmospheric and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Short summary
Observations reveal that in some regions phytoplankton biomass increases during the wintertime when growth conditions are sub-optimal, which has been attributed to a release from grazing during mixed layer deepening. Measurements of grazer populations to support this theory are lacking. We demonstrate that a release from grazing when the winter mixed layer is deepening holds only for certain grazing models, extending the use of phytoplankton observations to make inferences about grazer dynamics.
Observations reveal that in some regions phytoplankton biomass increases during the wintertime...
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