Skip Navigation


JPR Advance Access originally published online on June 13, 2006
Journal of Plankton Research 2006 28(9):873-875; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbl015
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
28/9/873    most recent
fbl015v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (10)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Flynn, K. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Flynn, K. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

COMMENT

Reply to Horizons Article ‘Plankton functional type modelling: running before we can walk’ Anderson (2005): II. Putting trophic functionality into plankton functional types

Kevin J. Flynn*

Institute of Environmental Sustainability, University of Wales Swansea, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK

* Corresponding Author: k.j.flynn@swansea.ac.uk

Received May 8, 2006; accepted in principle May 26, 2006; accepted for publication June 7, 2006; published online June 13, 2006
Communicating editor: R.P. Harris

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

While Anderson (Anderson, 2005Go) considers the pros and cons of plankton functional type models, I question whether we are missing something far more basic—trophic functionality, the ways in which organisms interact with each other. What is a functional type? Does the grouping accord with physiology (e.g. ‘Si-requiring’; mainly diatoms) or with respect to ecological function (‘dominant primary producer in an immature ecosystem’; diatoms need not always fulfil that role)? There is some level of acknowledgement (e.g. ERSEM; Blackford et al., 2004Go) that plankton functional types (PFTs) describe ‘ecological functionality’, but their description is still based on simple physiology. Even on a physiological basis, PFT design is fraught with problems; summer diatoms will not have the same physiology as their winter, spring or autumnal counterparts. That is not to say that physiology is unimportant; it is indeed vital because without it we cannot appreciate how the performance of . . . [Full Text of this Article]


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J PLANKTON RESHome page
R. Cropp and J. Norbury
Parameterizing plankton functional type models: insights from a dynamical systems perspective
J. Plankton Res., September 1, 2009; 31(9): 939 - 963.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 J PLANKTON RESHome page
X. Irigoien
Reply to Horizons Article 'Castles built on sand: dysfunctionality in plankton models and the inadequacy of dialogue between biologists and modellers' Flynn (2005). Shiny mathematical castles built on grey biological sands
J. Plankton Res., October 1, 2006; 28(10): 965 - 967.
[Full Text] [PDF]