Sack Lunch Seminar (SLS)

On the relationship between ocean nutrient distributions and phytoplankton biogeography.

Phytoplankton consume inorganic nutrients to create the organic molecules necessary to live and reproduce. Using simple models and numerical simulations we illustrate how the relative rates of delivery of these elements to the surface ocean by ocean transport and atmospheric deposition controls basin-scale patterns of phytoplankton community composition. This, in turn, controls the surface nutrient concentrations. We will focus on the biogeography of the nitrogen fixing phytoplankton and their relationship to nitrogen, phosphorus and iron sources and distributions.