Biological activity in the wake of an island close to a coastal upwelling
| by Mathias Sandulescu, Cristoobal Lopez, Emilio Hernandez-Garcia and Ulrike Feudel |
| Ecological Complexity 5, 228-237 (2008) |
| Output type: publication |
 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecocom.2008.01.003 |
Hydrodynamic forcing plays an important role in shaping the dynamics of
marine organisms, in particular of plankton. In this work
we study the planktonic biological activity in the wake of an island
which is close to an upwelling region. Our research is based on nu-
merical analysis of a kinematic flow mimicking the hydrodynamics in
the wake, coupled to a three-component plankton model. Depending
on model parameters different phenomena are described: a) The lack
of transport of nutrients and plankton across the wake, so that the
influence of upwelling on primary production on the other side of the
wake is blocked. b) For suffciently high vorticity, the role of the wake
in facilitating this transport and leading to an enhancement of pri-
mary production. Finally c) we show that under certain conditions
the interplay between wake structures and biological growth leads to
plankton blooms inside mesoscale hydrodynamic vortices that act as
incubators of primary production.
