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. 2016 Apr 19:7:11239.
doi: 10.1038/ncomms11239.

The timescales of global surface-ocean connectivity

Bror F Jönsson  1 , James R Watson  2   3
Affiliations

The timescales of global surface-ocean connectivity

Bror F Jönsson et al. Nat Commun. .

Abstract

Planktonic communities are shaped through a balance of local evolutionary adaptation and ecological succession driven in large part by migration. The timescales over which these processes operate are still largely unresolved. Here we use Lagrangian particle tracking and network theory to quantify the timescale over which surface currents connect different regions of the global ocean. We find that the fastest path between two patches--each randomly located anywhere in the surface ocean--is, on average, less than a decade. These results suggest that marine planktonic communities may keep pace with climate change--increasing temperatures, ocean acidification and changes in stratification over decadal timescales--through the advection of resilient types.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Connectivity matrices.
The raw minimum time connectivity matrix (a) and after Dijkstra's algorithm was applied (b). Major oceans are delimited by green lines. The number of patches (and hence the number of rows and columns) is 11,116.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Connectivity examples.
Examples of minimum connection times (Min-T) to and from two locations identified by white circle-dots: off Hawaii (a,b,e,f) and off South Africa (c,d,g,h). Times ‘to' are the shortest times taken for water from other patches to arrive at these locations. Times ‘from' are the shortest times taken for water from these locations to go to all others. The left column shows raw minimum connection times, with the large number of no-connections noted in grey, and median Min-T in parentheses. The right column panels show Min-T values generated using Dijkstra's algorithm. Here connections occur between all areas of the ocean and median values are much lower on average than those of the raw minimum connection times.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Global connectivity distributions.
Probability distributions of raw minimum connections times (blue) and those produced from Dijkstra's algorithm (red). Median minimum connection times (identified by the dashed vertical lines) are 6.13 years for the raw matrix, and 6.11 years for the modified. Note that connection times shorter than 1 year for Dijkstra are in fact raw connection times.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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