Coupling of Circulation and Marine Ecosystem Models

The history of modeling biological processes associated with marine plankton populations is relatively short, having its origins in the mid-1930s to mid-1940s (see Mills 1989 for an overview). The first models were developed to explain and quantify the processes that resulted in seasonal plankton cycles (e.g., Riley 1946). More recent models have retained the basic structure of the early models, but have extended their realism by incorporating advances in measurements and understanding of biological oceanographic processes.