Which habitats are the most productive

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We also thank the Conservatoire Botanique National Alpin for its continous effort in collecting high quality vegetation plots. Philipp Brun, Niklaus E. Zimmermann, Catherine H. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. All authors significantly interpreted results and contributed to writing and editing. Correspondence to Philipp Brun. Peer review information Nature Communications thanks Adrian Escudero and the other, anonymous, reviewer s for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Peer reviewer reports are available. Reprints and Permissions. Brun, P. The productivity-biodiversity relationship varies across diversity dimensions. Nat Commun 10, Download citation. Received : 25 January Accepted : 21 November Published : 12 December Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Polovina JJ Fisheries applications and biological impacts of artificial habitats. Academic Press Inc. Chapter Google Scholar. Randall RG, Minns CK Use of fish production per unit biomass ratios for measuring the productive capacity of fish habitats.

Mar Freshw Res — Rev Fish Sci — Ecol Evol — Stevenson C et al High apex predator biomass on remote Pacific Islands. Coral Reefs — Fish Res — Mar Fish Rev — Warburton K Growth and production of some important species of fish in a Mexican coastal lagoon system.

Download references. We are grateful to Stephanie Brodie and Krystle Keller for sharing telemetry data. All fish observations were carried out ethically, and no biota were collected.

James A. You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar. Correspondence to James A. Reprints and Permissions. Smith, J. Mar Biol , Download citation.

Received : 20 January Accepted : 09 August Published : 19 August Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:. Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative.

Skip to main content. Search SpringerLink Search. The major factor responsible for the lower productivity of the phyto-plankton, compared to the benthic plants, is, as we have noted, the lower average irradiance they receive as a consequence of vertical circulation. The circulation problem is also in some measure solved if the water body is very shallow, so that the cells never get very far away from the light.

This is the solution generally adopted in man-made high-yield aquatic ecosystems such as sewage oxidation ponds or algal mass culture systems in which a high rate of phytoplankton primary production is the aim: depths of 10 to 90 cm are commonly used. It is generally arranged in such systems that mineral nutrients are available in excess, so that the rate of primary production is limited by the rate of supply of PAR, and sometimes also of CO2, to the system.

Bannister a, b, has developed a theoretical treatment of phytoplankton growth under mineral nutrient- and CO2-saturated conditions by means of which the steady-state growth rate can be expressed as a function of the incident irradiance and the photosynthetic and respiratory characteristics of the cells.

Goldman a, b has comprehensively reviewed the topic of outdoor mass culture of algae. A crucial limiting factor in such systems is light saturation of photosynthesis. Even in the very dense algal suspensions that develop, the cells near the surface are exposed to irradi-ances well above their saturation points.

Of the three requirements for high productivity listed at the beginning of this section, such cells will have a high rate of collection of light energy, and given the plentiful nutrient supply rapid conversion of photosynthate to new cell material: what they will lack is efficient utilization of the absorbed energy in photosynthesis, since their carboxylation system will be unable to keep pace with the high rate of arrival of excitation energy.

The inability of algae to increase their photosynthetic rate linearly with irradiance all the way up to full sunlight is likely to remain an insuperable obstacle in the path of increasing yields from outdoor mass culture. To develop, by mutation or genetic engineering, algal types with increased carboxylase and lowered pigment content would not be a solution, because such cells would be poorly adapted to the lower light intensities existing at greater depths.

It is essential that the algal suspension should be sufficiently deep and dense to absorb nearly all the light incident upon it. This means that a gradient of irradiance, from full sunlight to near darkness, must exist within the suspension, and no one type of alga can be optimally adapted to all the intensities present.

In principle, a laminar arrangement with a range of algal types stacked one above the other in thin layers separated by transparent boundaries, with the most Sun-adapted type at the top and shade-adapted type at the bottom, could increase the yields, but the technical problems and capital cost would be considerable. Krause-Jensen and Sand-Jensen have sought, on the basis of a wide-ranging literature review, to determine whether general relationships between chlorophyll concentration, light attenuation and gross photosynthesis, across phytoplankton communities, macrophyte stands and microalgal mats can be arrived at.

In the sea, phytoplankton chlorophyll a concentrations are typically in the range 0. The compression of the photic zone is accompanied by a corresponding increase in the rate of photosynthesis per unit volume. A particular type of productive aquatic system that has become more common in recent decades is that referred to as harmful algal blooms HABs , or sometimes as red tides or brown tides, although not all red or brown tides are harmful.

The topic has been reviewed in a special issue, The ecology and oceanography of harmful algal blooms, of Limnology and Oceanography Vol. Harmful algal blooms can have a variety of undesirable effects, but the one that causes most concern is the production by some species of toxic metabolites that can kill other marine life forms, including fish, shellfish, mammals and birds, and can also poison human beings.