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NEGENTROPY FLOW IN COMMUNITIES OF PLANKTON 1
Author(s) -
Patten Bernard C.
Publication year - 1961
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1961.6.1.0026
Subject(s) - negentropy , mathematics , statistics , computer science , independent component analysis , machine learning
A model generalizing negentropy flux in plankton communities is presented. The biomass information equivalent B ( I ) at time t is where π (gross production) and ρ (respiration) represent rates of negentropy gain and loss, respectively. From this equation is derived an expression for the total community information in a homogeneous water column of depth z assuming a logistic relationship between photosynthesis and light intensity: where ϕ is a photosynthetic constant, I 0 is environmental negentropy concentration at the surface, δ is a decay coefficient expressing the rate of diminution of I 0 with depth, and c is the compensation depth. Various transformations of the exponent of this equation yielded for gross production in the whole water column: for respiration:and for net production:The cost in community negentropy to procure a unit of biotope negentropy was formulated as Empirical data are provided for a station in Raritan Bay which indicate a net loss of planktonic negentropy during the summer of 1959 amounting to 5.46 ✕ 10 20 bits/cm 2 /day. A comparison of observed costs with expected values computed from the model indicated no significant difference between expectation and observation, demonstrating the efficacy of the model even under conditions where the assumption of perfect homogeneity throughout the water column was only partially realized.