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JPR Advance Access originally published online on January 10, 2006
Journal of Plankton Research 2006 28(5):437-448; doi:10.1093/plankt/fbi119
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

What determines the slope of a plankton biomass spectrum?

Meng Zhou

Department of Environmental, Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125, USA

Corresponding Author: meng.zhou{at}umb.edu

Received August 3, 2005; accepted in principle November 16, 2005; accepted for publication January 3, 2006; published online January 10, 2006
Communicating editor: I.R. Jenkinson

A number of studies have been performed to understand the characteristics of biomass (size) spectra in aquatic plankton communities around the world. Although the area below a biomass spectrum curve represents the abundance or biomass of a plankton community, it has been hypothesized that the slope and shape of a biomass spectrum are determined by rates of growth, respiration, mortality and trophic dynamics. Observations of biomass spectra indicate that the slope of a biomass spectrum is around –1 on the logarithmic coordinates. Empirical hypotheses of growth-survival and the theoretical framework on biomass conservation based on the rates of individual body growth and abundance change have been developed for interpreting the slope and domes of a biomass spectrum. Here, a mathematical method is developed for estimating specific rates of body growth and abundance change from observations of biomass spectra, and a mathematical model is constructed for the relationship between a biomass spectrum slope, community assimilation efficiency and trophic levels.

This paper was presented in a session on "Size Structure of Plankton Communities", at the ASLO Summer International Meeting, held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, between 19 and 24 June, and coordinated by Xabier Irigoien, Roger Harris and Angel Lopez-Urrutia.


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