The microbial loop, which recycles nutrients in the upper layers of the ocean, is an integral part of plankton dynamics. The usual method for modelling the complex patterns involved has been to consider the 'Z' in N/P/Z (nutrient/phytoplankton/zooplankton) models as containing all possible grazers on P and, implicitly, relegate the carnivorous metazoans to the loss term on Z. I propose the opposite approach (to define Z explicitly as the metazoans responsible for export fluxes) and to simulate the effects of the microbial loop implicitly in terms of grazing and excretion rates. The reasons for taking this alternative route are (i) the importance of copepods in the carbonitrogen flux from the euphotic zone to deeper water compared with (ii) the predominantly internal role of the microzooplankton in recycling nutrients; and (iii) the problems of sampling the microbial component, compared with sampling larger metazoans. Finally, there is the need to keep plankton models as simple as possible for later use in coupled physical/biological systems.
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机译：在海洋上层循环养分的微生物循环是浮游生物动力学不可或缺的一部分。对复杂模式进行建模的常用方法是，将N / P / Z（营养/浮游植物/浮游动物）模型中的“ Z”包含所有P上可能的放牧者，并隐含地将肉食后生动物放归到损失项我提出了相反的方法（将Z明确定义为负责出口通量的后生动物），并以放牧和排泄率隐式模拟了微生物环的影响。采取这种替代途径的原因是：（i）pe足类动物在从富营养区到深水的碳/氮通量中的重要性，与（ii）微型浮游动物在营养循环中的主要内部作用相比； （iii）与对大型后生动物进行采样相比，对微生物成分进行采样的问题。最后，需要使浮游生物模型尽可能简单，以便以后在物理/生物耦合系统中使用。
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