TO END…

Starlings – Brighton pier

Behaviour and its impact on aggregation not just marine problem

- other sciences face the same problems

- terrestrial plants, wildebeest, bird flocks

OPEN MIND REQUIRED

Should be prepared to look for answers in other fields.

Ah thank you.

Where’s the bar?

Biologists would be forgiven for thinking ….

And for zooplankton

greyscale to avoid embarrassment

Modellers have been studiously avoiding behaviour

individuals count and influence the large scale distribution

But modelling all individuals is unfeasible

especially in 3d

Very early days but some progress is being made.

DESCRIBE

Individual model

in turbulence

congregate or split depending on strength

swim to or from neighbour depending on proximity

Continuous model

based on ideas from statistical physics

GOOD AGREEMENT

TRANSFER OF IDEAS, PATCHINESS NOT JUST PLANKTON…

GO THROUGH

Concentration of interest in small, short-lived isolated place

transfer of structure from scale to scale

EXPLAIN PLOTS

TOP: turbulence experiment

hugely spatially and temporally variable

BOTTOM 2: Channel time-series

T and fluorescence

similar structure to turbulence

Given coherent features as well and ability to trap and protect…

NEED TO REVISE OLD THEORIES

But what can describe all structure and variability seen?

Multifractal

explain scaling

Lots of data required to test applicability – is nature multifractal?

No open ocean dataset yet…

GO THROUGH

Iceland transect

Hopefully there and back

Depends on weather

In theory >5 decades of data

Have discussed patchiness per se, but…

Is it just a pretty pattern or can it have ecological significance?