Gordon Arthur Riley

Riley's oceanographic work focused on the influences affecting the population ecology of plankton systems in coastal and open ocean waters. His early work correlated phytoplankton production with regulating factors such as nutrients, light and zooplankton abundance. From this empirical base he went on to develop ecosystem models that explained the annual cycle of plankton ecosystems, most notably in his analysis of the Georges Bank region.^[3] His final publication concerned patchiness in plankton,^[4] the potential role of diel vertical migration in this, and reflected on what this implied for plankton modelling studies, including his own 1946 study.^[3]

After an extended period at Yale, in 1965 Riley moved to become a professor, and the director, at the Institute of Oceanography at Dalhousie University. Much of his work continued to be in collaboration with researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Towards the end of his life, Riley wrote a candid autobiography of his scientific life, in part to document the early days of oceanography as a discipline.^[5]

• Autobiography, University of California San Diego
• Biography, Dalhousie University
• Obituary, Limnology and Oceanography

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