Lisa V. Lucas (Former Employee)

Processes influencing estuarine phytoplankton growth occur over a range of time scales, but many conceptual and numerical models of estuarine phytoplankton production dynamics neglect mechanisms occurring on the shorter (e.g., intratidal) time scales. We used a numerical model to explore the influence of short time-scale variability in phytoplankton sources and sinks on long-term growth...

Applications of transport time scales are pervasive in biological, hydrologic, and geochemical studies yet these times scales are not consistently defined and applied with rigor in the literature. We compare three transport time scales (flushing time, age, and residence time) commonly used to measure the retention of water or scalar quantities transported with water. We identify the...

The formation and spatial distribution of phytoplankton blooms in estuaries are controlled by (1) local mechanisms, which determine the production-loss balance for a water column at a particular spatial location (i.e. control if a bloom is possible), and (2) transport-related mechanisms, which govern biomass distribution (i.e. control if and where a bloom actually occurs). In this study...

The development and distribution of phytoplankton blooms in estuaries are functions of both local conditions (i.e. the production-loss balance for a water column at a particular spatial location) and large-scale horizontal transport. In this study, the second of a 2-paper series, we use a depth-averaged hydrodynamic-biological model to identify transport-related mechanisms impacting...

In this paper we use numerical models of coupled biological-hydrodynamic processes to search for general principles of bloom regulation in estuarine waters. We address three questions: what are the dynamics of stratification in coastal systems as influenced by variable freshwater input and tidal stirring? How does phytoplankton growth respond to these dynamics? Can the classical Sverdrup...

We present an empirical model that describes the ratio of phytoplankton chlorophyll a to carbon, Chl: C, as a function of temperature, daily irradiance, and nutrient-limited growth rate. Our model is based on 219 published measurements of algal cultures exposed to light-limited or nutrient-limited growth conditions. We illustrate an approach for using this estimator of Chl: C to...