In iron sulfate fertilization you're only adding two nutrients (iron and sulfur). Now that nutrient is in excess in one area so metabolic uptake of all nutrients increases locally, creating a concentration gradient that reduces nutrients available elsewhere. This leads to one of the other limiting nutrients like phosphorus or nitrogen preventing growth of other life forms in another location since the concentration gradient created by the phytoplankton sucked it away. Also sulfur concentration changes metabolic pathways through epigenetic effects so there are other effects just within the phytoplankton that depend on the species that happens to be present that will determine what the exact concentration gradient would look like. The dynamic of nutrients shifting of the metabolome makes modeling and risk assessment difficult since some species are known to produce toxins which can bioaccumulate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phycotoxin