Wind Events and Food Chain Dynamics Within the New York Bight

Time series of wind, current, nutrients, chlorophyll, and zooplankton are used to examine the effect of storm events on the food chain dynamics of the New York Bight. Storm cause dilution of phytoplankton concentration in the vertical plane, but lead to aggregation of chlorophyll in the horizontal field. Nutrients are made available with onshore flow in response to wind events favorable for upwelling. A series of nutrient budgets suggest that storm-induced mixing and upwelling of nitrate may satisfy at least 33% of the productivity demand of this system. Examples of the biological response to storms are drawn from 20 cruises during January, March, April-May, and August-September 1974, 1975, 1976, and 1977 under mixed and stratified conditions of the water column. The interaction of storms and seasonal stratification suggests predictable structure and frequency of chlorophyll distribution across the shelf which may influence both the survival strategies of herbivores and the loci of energy transfer to the rest of the food chain.