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Physical and Biological Scales of Variability in Lakes, Estuaries, and the Coastal Ocean

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Ecological Time Series

Abstract

What is meant by “scale”? Why is it an important concept in ecology? Why does scale play a particularly prominent role when one speaks of “coupling”? Can one make nontrivial, general statements, if phrased in terms of scale alone, that apply to several seemingly different systems? Can other generalizations that highlight “scale” and “coupling” help us understand why some ecological systems differ so greatly from others? I shall address aspects of these questions here, with particular emphasis on results from lakes, estuaries, and the coastal ocean. I begin with some elementary notions, then review how scale considerations enter the coupling between physical and biological systems in the size scale regime between 100 m and 100 km—a regime of great ecological interest and the scale of most lakes, estuaries, and the coastal ocean. Other papers in this volume (i.e., Roughgarden et al. 1989, see footnote at the bottom of this page) focus on, for example, terrestrial systems and the general question of how large, complex systems are structured; I end, then, by advancing some speculations about these and other areas I have neglected. Finally, some publications on theory in biological oceanography (and related disciplines) have recently appeared: one is nearly a tutorial (Platt et al. 1981) and the other assays the use and prospects for ecosystem theory (Ulanowicz and Piatt 1985). I therefore largely avoid the topics that these authors have addressed so well.

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Authors
  1. Thomas M. Powell
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Intergrative Biology, University of California-Berkeley, USA

    Thomas M. Powell

  2. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA

    John H. Steele

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© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Powell, T.M. (1995). Physical and Biological Scales of Variability in Lakes, Estuaries, and the Coastal Ocean. In: Powell, T.M., Steele, J.H. (eds) Ecological Time Series. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1769-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1769-6_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-412-05201-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1769-6

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