Depending on their location around the world, gyres can be regions of high biological productivity or low productivity. Each gyre has a unique ecological profile but can be grouped by region due to dominating characteristics. Generally, productivity is greater for cyclonic gyres (e.g., subpolar gyres) that drive upwelling through Ekman suction and lesser for anticyclonic gyres (e.g., subtropical gyres) that drive downwelling through Ekman pumping, but this can differ between seasons and regions.
Subtropical gyres are sometimes described as "ocean deserts" or "biological deserts", in reference to arid land deserts where little life exists.  Due to their oligotrophic characteristics, warm subtropical gyres have some of the least productive waters per unit surface area in the ocean. The downwelling of water that occurs in subtropical gyres takes nutrients deeper in the ocean, removing them from surface waters. Organic particles can also be removed from surface waters through gravitational sinking, where the particle is too heavy to remain suspended in the water column. However, since subtropical gyres cover 60% of the ocean surface, their relatively low production per unit area is made up for by covering massive areas of the Earth. This means that, despite being areas of relatively low productivity and low nutrients, they play a large role in contributing to the overall amount of ocean production.
In contrast to subtropical gyres, subpolar gyres can have a lot of biological activity due to Ekman suction upwelling driven by wind stress curl. Subpolar  gyres in the North Atlantic have a "bloom and crash" pattern following seasonal and storm patterns. The highest productivity in the North Atlantic occurs in boreal spring when there are long days and high levels of nutrients. This is different to the subpolar North Pacific, where almost no phytoplankton bloom occurs and patterns of respiration are more consistent through time than in the North Atlantic.