The influence of micro-zooplankton on marine productivity

They exhibit complex growth dynamics including selective ingestion, high weight-specific metabolic rates and variable rates of nutrient regeneration. However, at least partly due to a lack of suitable data sets to provide parameter values, the role of these species in planktonic ecosystem models has not been well studied.

We will investigate the inclusion of micro-zooplankton grazers in an existing ecosystem model to assess their influence on productivity and model dynamics and to study the impotance of the level of sophstication used to model micro-zooplantkon.