Biological Function
The growth rate of phytoplankton is controlled by the nutrient concentration and the regeneration of nutrients in the sea is very important part of the interaction between higher and lower trophic levels. The separation due to the pycnocline formation prevents the supply of nutrients from the lower layer into the upper layer. Nutrient fluxes through the pycnocline are lower than at other surface layers.
Read more about this topic: Pycnocline
Famous quotes containing the words biological and/or function:
“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-hearted attempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)