Impact of Grazing Processes on the Structure and Persistence of Thin Biological Layers
Abstract
My long term goal is to understand the functional roles of microzooplankton (20-200 microns) in the sea. It has been argued that on a timescale of days, the instantaneous grazing rate of zooplankton in toto is greater than the instantaneous rates of vertical and horizontal mixing by at least an order of magnitude, and is the same order of magnitude as the instantaneous rate of phytoplankton cell division. Hence, grazing is a critically important loss term in phytoplankton dynamics (Banse, 1992). Because microzooplankton are the major grazers of phytoplankton in pelagic food webs under most circumstances, their grazing impacts exert an important impact on phytoplankton losses in the sea. My specific interests are in the vital rate processes of feeding and reproduction (e.g., Gifford 1988; Gifford, et al. 1995) and in understanding their function as prey for higher organisms (e.g., Gifford and Dagg, 1988; 1989; Gifford 1993).
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 1997
- Accession Number
- ADA627830
Entities
People
- Dian J. Gifford
- Percy L. Donaghay
Organizations
- University of Rhode Island