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Bacterial clustering amplifies the reshaping of eutrophic plumes around marine particles: A hybrid data-driven model

Fig 5

Plume quenching for marine aggregates.

Predicted impact of the bacterial uptake strength and degree of clustering on the length of the trailing plume behind marine particles. The color represents the length quenching factor, , which is defined as the ratio of the undisturbed plume length, , at zero-uptake (Da = 0) over the quenched plume length, L_plm. A quenching factor of E_L = 2 means that the undisturbed plume is two-times longer than the quenched, and the relative change in the plume length, ΔL ≈ 1 − 1/E_L, is 50%. The points represent experimental data for the sinking velocity (SV) and the equivalent sphere diameter (ESD) of individual aggregates. The straight black line corresponds to the timescale condition of Pe/Da = 100 [9]. Computations were performed for small organic solutes, like amino acids and oligo-saccharides, with a diffusivity of . The contours correspond to selected values of the quenching factor (%relative change): 1.11 (10%), 1.25 (20%), 1.5 (34%), 2 (50%), 3 (67%), 5 (80%), 10 (90%), 15 (93%), 20 (95%), and 30 (97%). Source of experimental data: [53] dark green, [54] green, [55] purple, [56] red, [57] blue, [58] magenta, [59] dark cyan, [60] black.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012660.g005