Abstract
Event-scale phenomena, of limited temporal duration or restricted spatial extent, often play a disproportionately large role in ecological processes occurring in the ocean water column. Nutrient and gas fluxes, upwelling and downwelling, transport of biogeochemically important elements, predator-prey interactions, and other processes may be markedly influenced by such events, which are inadequately resolved from infrequent ship surveys. The advent of autonomous instrumentation, including underwater gliders, profiling floats, surface drifters, enhanced moorings, coastal high-frequency radars, and satellite remote sensing, now provides the capability to resolve such phenomena and assess their role in structuring pelagic ecosystems. These methods are especially valuable when integrated together, and with shipboard calibration measurements and experimental programs. © 2013 by The Oceanography Society. All rights reserved.
Highlights
Event-scale phenomena, of limited temporal duration or restricted spatial extent, often play a disproportionately large role in ecological processes occurring in the ocean water column
Nutrient and gas fluxes, upwelling and downwelling, transport of biogeochemically important elements, predator-prey interactions, and other processes may be markedly influenced by such events, which are inadequately resolved from infrequent ship surveys
Challenging to measure are processes that occur on the “event” scale, for example, individual upwelling or downwelling events, patch feeding by transient schools of fishes or migratory pods of cetaceans, ocean mixing events, and passage of submesoscale eddies
Summary
Event-scale phenomena, of limited temporal duration or restricted spatial extent, often play a disproportionately large role in ecological processes occurring in the ocean water column. The advent of autonomous instrumentation, including underwater gliders, profiling floats, surface drifters, enhanced moorings, coastal high-frequency radars, and satellite remote sensing, provides the capability to resolve such phenomena and assess their role in structuring pelagic ecosystems. Challenging to measure are processes that occur on the “event” scale (i.e., of limited temporal duration or restricted spatial extent), for example, individual upwelling or downwelling events, patch feeding by transient schools of fishes or migratory pods of cetaceans, ocean mixing events, and passage of submesoscale eddies Such events can play a disproportionately large role in regulating fluxes of nutrients or gases, aggregation of zooplankton or fishes, and export fluxes of phytoplankton, carbon, nitrogen, and other ecologically important elements. The moorings permit real-time measurement of the magnitude, frequency, and duration of undersaturation events, key variables that influence the responses of calcifying organisms to the stress of
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
