On the origin of plankton patchiness

Plankton is the productive base of aquatic ecosystems and plays a major role in the global control of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, after intensive study, the factors that drive its spatial distribution are still far from being clear. The models proposed so far show very limited agreement with actual data as many of their results are not consistent with field observations. Here, we show that fluctuations and turbulent diffusion in standard prey–predator models are able to accurately and consistently explain plankton field observations at mesoscales (1–100 km). This includes not only the spatial pattern but also its temporal evolution. We explicitly elucidate the interplay between physical and biological factors, suggesting that the form in which small-scale biotic fluctuations are transferred to larger scales may constitute one of the key elements in determining the spatial distribution of plankton in the sea.