On Tuesday, October 15, Beatriz Mouriño, researcher of the Biological Oceanography group at CIM-UVigo and professor in the Department of Ecology and Animal Biology (University of Vigo), will present, in a new lecture of the “Café con Sal” series, the talk “Why should we care about ocean turbulence?”, in which she will explain the relevance of small-scale turbulence measurements in the study of marine plankton.
Numerous testimonies throughout history show us that turbulence has been a fascinating concept for centuries. This phenomenon controls the functioning of numerous physical, chemical, and biological processes in the ocean. However, until very recently, we were not able to measure turbulence in the natural environment. One of the most fascinating implications of this progress is the possibility of field-testing classical ecology models. Margalef’s mandala, proposed by the famous ecologist in 1978, suggests that turbulence and nutrients are the main factors determining the presence of different groups of phytoplankton. Despite their small size, these microscopic algae produce as much oxygen as tropical forests, remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and buffer climate change.
Beatriz Mouriño will present during her lecture the results obtained within the framework of the CHAOS (El papel de la turbulencia y la dinámica del suministro de nutrientes en la estructura de las comunidades marinas de fitoplancton) and REMEDIOS (RolE of Mixing on phytoplankton bloom initiation, maintEnance and DIssipatiOn in the galician ríaS) projects, funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, in which small-scale turbulence measurements obtained in different oceanic regions were used to verify, for the first time, Margalef’s mandala in the field. These results are part of the doctoral theses of Marina Villamaña and José Luis Otero, PhD students in the Biological Oceanography group at CIM-UVigo.
