Synoptic relationships between surface Chlorophyll- a and diagnostic pigments specific to phytoplankton functional types

By Takafumi Hirata, N. Hardman-Mountford, R. Brewin, J. Aiken, R. Barlow, Koji Suzuki, Tomonori Isada, Evan A. Howell, T. Hashioka, M. Noguchi-Aita and 1 more. 2011

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Abstract. Error-quantified, synoptic-scale relationships between chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and phytoplankton pigment groups at the sea surface are presented. A total of ten pigment groups were considered to represent three Phytoplankton Size Classes (PSCs, micro-, nano- and picoplankton) and seven Phytoplankton Functional Types (PFTs, i.e. diatoms, dinoflagellates, green algae, prymnesiophytes (haptophytes), pico-eukaryotes, prokaryotes and Prochlorococcus sp.). The observed relationships between Chl-a and PSCs/PFTs were well-defined at the global scale to show that a community shift of phytoplankton at the basin and global scales is reflected by a change in Chl-a of the total community. Thus, Chl-a of the total community can be used as an index of not only phytoplankton biomass but also of their community structure. Within these relationships, we also found non-monotonic variations with Chl-a for certain pico-sized phytoplankton (pico-eukaryotes, Prokaryotes and Prochlorococcus sp.) and nano-sized phytoplankton (Green algae, prymnesiophytes). The relationships were quantified with a least-square fitting approach in order to enable an estimation of the PFTs from Chl-a where PFTs are expressed as a percentage of the total Chl-a. The estimated uncertainty of the relationships depends on both PFT and Chl-a concentration. Maximum uncertainty of 31.8% was found for diatoms at Chl-a = 0.49 mg m−3. However, the mean uncertainty of the relationships over all PFTs was 5.9% over the entire Chl-a range observed in situ (0.02

Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a6112b658d90b743be68d63b3e9a812c107d8dda

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Modelling spatial and temporal patterns in size-structured marine plankton communities: top -down and bottom -up controls (2014, background): “, 2012) to explore the relevance of this steady-state theory within a more realistic ecological and environmental framework [we note that simulated global distributions of annual mean nitrate, chlorophyll a and primary production are qualitatively consistent with observational estimates, and the bio”