Extraction of a weak climatic signal by an ecosystem
- 1 April 2002
- journal article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature
- Vol. 416 (6881), 629-632
- https://doi.org/10.1038/416629a
Abstract
The complexity of ecosystems can cause subtle and chaotic responses to changes in external forcing. Although ecosystems may not normally behave chaotically, sensitivity to external influences associated with nonlinearity can lead to amplification of climatic signals. Strong correlations between an El Niño index and rainfall and maize yield in Zimbabwe have been demonstrated; the correlation with maize yield was stronger than that with rainfall. A second example is the 100,000-year ice-age cycle, which may arise from a weak cycle in radiation through its influence on the concentration of atmospheric CO2 (ref. 5). Such integration of a weak climatic signal has yet to be demonstrated in a realistic theoretical system. Here we use a particular climatic phenomenon-the observed association between plankton populations around the UK and the position of the Gulf Stream-as a probe to demonstrate how a detailed marine ecosystem model extracts a weak signal that is spread across different meteorological variables. Biological systems may therefore respond to climatic signals other than those that dominate the driving variables.This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- Nonlinear effects of large-scale climatic variability on wild and domestic herbivoresNature, 2001
- The impact of regional‐scale changes in the weather on the long‐term dynamics of Eudiaptomus and Daphnia in Esthwaite Water, CumbriaFreshwater Biology, 2000
- The 100,000-Year Ice-Age Cycle Identified and Found to Lag Temperature, Carbon Dioxide, and Orbital EccentricityScience, 2000
- Far-field control of long-term changes in Northumberland (NW North Sea) coastal zooplanktonICES Journal of Marine Science, 1996
- UK lake plankton and the Gulf StreamNature, 1995
- North-South shifts of the Gulf Stream and their climatic connection with the abundance of zooplankton in the UK and its surrounding seasICES Journal of Marine Science, 1995
- Forecasting Zimbabwean maize yield using eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatureNature, 1994
- Latitudinal Displacements of the Gulf Stream and the Abundance of Plankton in the North-East AtlanticJournal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 1992
- Distinguishing error from chaos in ecological time seriesPhilosophical Transactions B, 1990
- Are ecological systems chaotic — And if not, why not?Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 1989