Hypothesis for origin of planktonic patchiness

ALTHOUGH environmental heterogeneity can contribute to the observed patchiness in oceanic planktonic populations, biological interactions between phytoplankton and herbivorous copepods can lead to similar patterns. The phenomenon of spontaneous pattern generation even in a homogeneous environment through the interplay of reaction and movement is a very general property of the class of mathematical 'reaction-diffusion' equations used to model such systems, and there are several ways in which such patterns may occur. The result may be either spatiotemporal patterns¹ or time-independent spatial patterns. Usually one thinks of diffusion as damping inhomogeneities, and a hypothesis put forward by Steele² essentially relies on a balance reached between the dehomogenising aspects of local interaction and the homogenising influence of diffusion to produce pattern. On the other hand, it has also been suggested^3-6 that in some conditions diffusion can destabilise an otherwise stable interaction (in the manner originally suggested by Turing⁷) to produce pattern. We have explored⁵ this further in a nonlinear analysis that describes the final stages of pattern formation, and the resultant calculations provide some insights into the spatial scale of patterns which might arise in this way.