Ecology mapped complexity : An Antidote to Chaos ?

Séminaire de M. Sonnewald (MIT/Havard), Mardi 8 Janvier 2019 à 15h30, salle Lliboutry, Bât. Glaciologie

Ecology mapped complexity : An Antidote to Chaos ?

Séminaire de : Maike Sonnewald (MIT/Havard)

Abstract :
The complicated nature of ecology in the global ocean confounds simple interpretation. This lack resents an obstacle to estimates of carbon export through numerical modeling and hampers observational efforts. Using unsupervised learning, we map the global ecological niches present in the highly intricate DARWIN model, using 51 species with a range of functional types and nutrients on top of the ECCO State Estimate physics. A dynamic ocean ecology emerges, with some fluid and some sharp transitions between 74 niches and expected compositions are found in for example oligotrophic gyres or regions of upwelling. The Curtis-Bray dissimilarity metric is used to sort the niches to reduce the complicated view down to the level seen in mapping efforts ignoring ecology like SEASCAPES or those by Longhurst et al.