Extraction of a weak climatic signal by an ecosystem

The complexity of ecosystems can cause subtle(1) and chaotic responses to changes in external forcing(2). Although ecosystems may not normally behave chaotically(3), sensitivity to external influences associated with nonlinearity can lead to amplification of climatic signals. Strong correlations between an El Nino index and rainfall and maize yield in Zimbabwe have been demonstrated(4); the correlation with maize yield was stronger than that with rainfall. A second example is the 100,000-year ice-age cycle, which may arise from a weak cycle in radiation through its influence on the concentration of atmospheric CO2 (ref. 5). Such integration of a weak climatic signal has yet to be demonstrated in a realistic theoretical system. Here we use a particular climatic phenomenon-the observed association between plankton populations around the UK and the position of the Gulf Stream(6,7)-as a probe to demonstrate how a detailed marine ecosystem model extracts a weak signal that is spread across different meteorological variables. Biological systems may therefore respond to climatic signals other than those that dominate the driving variables.