[Interdependence of plankton spatial distribution and plancton biomass temporal oscillations: mathematical simulation].
The dynamics of aquatic biological communities in a patchy environment is of great interest in respect to interrelations between phenomena at various spatial and time scales. To study the complex plankton dynamics in relation to variations of such a biologically essential parameter as the fish predation rate, we use a simple reaction-diffusion model of trophic interactions between phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish. We suggest that plankton is distributed between two habitats one of which is fish-free due to hydrological inhomogeneity, while the other is fish-populated. We show that temporal variations in the fish predation rate do not violate the strong correspondence between the character of spatial distribution of plankton and changes of plankton biomass in time: regular temporal oscillations of plankton biomass correspond to large-scale plankton patches, while chaotic oscillations correspond to small-scale plankton patterns. As in the case of the constant fish predation rate, the chaotic plankton dynamics is characterized by coexistence of the chaotic attractor and limit cycle.
Medvedinskiĭ
A B
AB
Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pushchino, Moscow Region, 142290 Russia.
Tikhonova
I A
IA
Li
B L
BL
Malchow
H
H
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D018533:Biomass; D004058:Diffusion; D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological; D010839:Phytoplankton; D010933:Plankton; D013997:Time Factors; D015048:Zooplankton