Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1893/30445
Appears in Collections:Aquaculture Journal Articles
Peer Review Status: Refereed
Title: Antarctic phytoplankton community composition and size structure: importance of ice type and temperature as regulatory factors
Author(s): Biggs, Tristan E G
Alvarez-Fernandez, Santiago
Evans, Claire
Mojica, Kristina D A
Rozema, Patrick D
Venables, Hugh J
Pond, David W
Brussaard, Corina P D
Keywords: Cellular carbon
Flow cytometry
Ice type
Pigments
Size fractionation
Temperature
Issue Date: Nov-2019
Date Deposited: 7-Nov-2019
Citation: Biggs TEG, Alvarez-Fernandez S, Evans C, Mojica KDA, Rozema PD, Venables HJ, Pond DW & Brussaard CPD (2019) Antarctic phytoplankton community composition and size structure: importance of ice type and temperature as regulatory factors. Polar Biology, 42 (11), pp. 1997-2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-019-02576-3
Abstract: Climate change at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is predicted to cause major changes in phytoplankton community composition, however, detailed seasonal field data remain limited and it is largely unknown how (changes in) environmental factors influence cell size and ecosystem function. Physicochemical drivers of phytoplankton community abundance, taxonomic composition and size class were studied over two productive austral seasons in the coastal waters of the climatically sensitive WAP. Ice type (fast, grease, pack or brash ice) was important in structuring the pre-bloom phytoplankton community as well as cell size of the summer phytoplankton bloom. Maximum biomass accumulation was regulated by light and nutrient availability, which in turn were regulated by wind-driven mixing events. The proportion of larger-sized (> 20 µm) diatoms increased under prolonged summer stratification in combination with frequent and moderate-strength wind-induced mixing. Canonical correspondence analysis showed that relatively high temperature was correlated with nano-sized cryptophytes, whereas prymnesiophytes (Phaeocystis antarctica) increased in association with high irradiance and low salinities. During autumn of Season 1, a large bloom of 4.5-µm-sized diatoms occurred under conditions of seawater temperature > 0 °C and relatively high light and phosphate concentrations. This bloom was followed by a succession of larger nano-sized diatoms (11.4 µm) related to reductions in phosphate and light availability. Our results demonstrate that flow cytometry in combination with chemotaxonomy and size fractionation provides a powerful approach to monitor phytoplankton community dynamics in the rapidly warming Antarctic coastal waters.
DOI Link: 10.1007/s00300-019-02576-3
Rights: © The Author(s) 2019 This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Licence URL(s): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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