Thermal stability and phytoplankton distribution

Thermal stability is the potential of water columns to mix, and has long been known to fundamentally influence the vertical and temporal distribution of phytoplankton. Essentially this is because it indirectly controls the amount of light available to phytoplankton.Under stable conditions of strong temperature gradients algal species (or assemblages of associated species) distribute vertically because they have sufficient time to exploit the attenuated light field at their preferred depths. This encourages a species diversity which, in the Southern Hemisphere, is especially exemplified by the extremely stable conditions under the permanent ice of Antarctic lakes.In other lakes stability commonly encourages growth of blue-green algae by permitting their positive buoyancy to place them in optimal light conditions, and by inhibiting the resuspension of competing non-buoyant species. Analogous patterns occur with motile species (Dinophyceae, Cryptophyceae, etc.), and with non-motile forms whose physiological adaptations allow growth to large sub-surface peaks at preferred depths. These sub-surface maxima can be upwelled to the water surface, in a manner controlled by thermal stability and vertical shear, and horizontally transported to give large variations in horizontal distribution.At all latitudes diel stability cycles in surface waters can affect physiological properties important for growth, and in some circumstances can dominate the phytoplankton dynamics and distribution.Such short-term stability events merge with longer-term (e.g. annual) events with no conceptual distinction. A modern way to integrate this continuity is by scaling using spectral analysis of cyclicity. This allows biological variables (algal biomass, numbers, production) to be stochastically related to indices of stability (e.g. Brunt-Väisälä frequency).