Vertical distribution of phytoplankton biomass, production and growth in the Atlantic subtropical gyres
By V. Pérez, Emilio Fernández, Emilio Marañón, X. Morán, Mike Zubkov. 2006
115 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Ninety-four stations were sampled in the Atlantic subtropical gyres during 10 cruises carried out between 1995 and 2001, mainly in boreal spring and autumn. Chlorophyll a (Chl-a) and primary production were measured during all cruises, and phytoplankton biomass was estimated in part of them. Picoplankton (o2mm) represented 460% of total Chl-a concentration measured at the surface, and their contribution to this variable increased with depth. Phytoplankton carbon concentrations were higher in the upper metres of the water column, whereas Chl-a showed a deep maximum (DCM). At each station, the water column was divided into the upper mixed layer (ML) and the DCM layer (DCML). The boundary between the two layers was calculated as the depth where Chl-a concentration was 50% of the maximum Chl-a concentration. On average DCML extends from 67 to 126 m depth. Carbon to Chl-a (C:Chl-a) ratios were used to estimate phytoplankton carbon content from Chl-a in order to obtain a large phytoplankton carbon dataset. Total C:Chl-a ratios averaged (7s.e.) 1037 7( n ¼ 22) in the ML and 247 4( n ¼ 12) in the DCML and were higher in larger cells than in picoplankton. Using these ratios and primary production measurements, we derived mean specific growth rates of 0.1770.01 d � 1 (n ¼ 173) in the ML and 0.2070.01 d � 1 (n ¼ 165) in the DCML although the differences were not significant (t-test, p40.05). Our results suggest a moderate contribution of the DCML (43%) to both phytoplankton biomass and primary production in the Atlantic subtropical gyres. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Subfields: Ecology, Oceanography
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fa30ced7cff594768d0dd710a9ec1eb8b32bf041
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology
In Oceanography
Citations in the corpus
- Coccolithophore ecology in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic Ocean: New perspectives from the Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) programme (2017, background): “The DCM is generally regarded as neither a maximum in phytoplankton biomass or in primary production (Marañón et al., 2000; Perez et al., 2005, 2006), but marks a depth where the relative availability of surface irradiance has decreased to 1% of its surface value and where photo-acclimation results…”