Martin Adrian
Empress Dock National Oceanography Centre Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2005 Dec 15;363(1837):2873-90. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2005.1663.
Oceanic plant life is dominated by the microscopic phytoplankton. Regardless of the scale at which they are observed, they display striking heterogeneity in their distribution. At their most dramatic they paint colorful swathes across whole seas. A short history of observations of phytoplankton 'patchiness' is presented, illustrated with some of the many ideas put forward to explain it. Focus is then turned to the mesoscale, covering scales of roughly 1-500 km. It is argued that the spatial variability seen in phytoplankton at these scales gives important information on the biogeochemistry of the ocean. In particular, interplay between the physical circulation and biological processes results in constantly shifting patterns that are strongly related to changes induced in phytoplankton production. It is thought that this physical influence may play a major role in controlling the rate at which new plant material (primary production) is generated in much of the world's oceans. Major questions yet to be addressed are also discussed including the difficulty of quantifying processes on the very limit of what we can model or observe and how these processes may change in response to and exert a feedback on future climate change.
海洋植物主要由微小的浮游植物构成。无论在何种观测尺度下，它们的分布都呈现出显著的不均匀性。在最显著的情况下，它们会在整片海域描绘出色彩斑斓的条带。本文介绍了浮游植物“斑块状分布”的观测简史，并列举了一些为解释这种现象而提出的诸多观点。接着将重点转向中尺度，其涵盖的尺度大致为1 - 500千米。有人认为，在这些尺度上浮游植物所呈现出的空间变异性为海洋生物地球化学提供了重要信息。特别是，物理环流与生物过程之间的相互作用导致了不断变化的模式，这些模式与浮游植物生产中所引发的变化密切相关。人们认为，这种物理影响可能在控制世界上大部分海洋中新型植物物质（初级生产）的产生速率方面发挥着主要作用。还讨论了尚未解决的主要问题，包括量化我们所能建模或观测的极限过程的难度，以及这些过程可能如何响应未来气候变化并对其产生反馈。
