title: Chaos and order in plankton dynamics. Complex behavior of a simple model.
abstract: The role of the diffusive interaction between fish-populated and fish-free habitats in a patchy environment in plankton pattern formation is studied by means of a minimal reaction-diffusion model of the nutrient-plankton-fish food chain. It is shown that such interaction can give rise to spatio-temporal plankton patterns. The fractal dimension of the patterns is shown dependent on the fish predation rate. The spatially averaged plankton dynamics depending on both fish predation rate and distance between fish-populated habitats can exhibit chaotic and regular behavior. The chaotic plankton dynamics is characteristic of a wide parameter range.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Theoretical & Experimental Biophysics, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142290 Russia. medvinsky@venus.iteb.serpukhov.su
authors.forename: Alexander B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Medvinsky
authors.forename: Irene A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Tikhonova
authors.forename: Sergey V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Petrovskii
authors.forename: Horst
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Malchow
authors.forename: Ezio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Venturino
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D005399:Fishes; D020387:Food Chain; D008386:Marine Biology; D008954:Models, Biological; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D010933:Plankton / Q000254:growth & development*; D011157:Population Dynamics