Sea ice diatoms and ice edge planktonic diatoms at the northern limit of the Weddell Sea pack ice

• Main Authors: Ligowski,Ryszard, Godlewski,Miroslaw, Lukowski,Aleksy
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Laboratory of Polar Biology, Department of Invertebrate Zoology and Hydrobiology, University of Lodz/Department of Plant Cytology and Cytochemistry, Institute of Physiology and Cytology, University of Lodz/Department of Zoology and Ecology, Institute of Zoology, University of Warsaw 1992
• Subjects: Weddell Sea; Weddell; South Orkney Islands; Elephant Island; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Biology; Proceedings of the NIPR Symposium on Polar Biology; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=5149; http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00005149/; https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=5149&item_no=1&attribute_id=18&file_no=1

Drifting brash ice and phytoplankton were collected between Elephant Island and South Orkney Islands during the period from late December 1988 to mid-January 1989. In diatom assemblages from the sea ice, the highest occurrence was displayed by Nitzschia curta, N. cylindrus and N. neglecta. In phytoplankton assemblages the highest occurrence was shown by Nitzschia curta, Actinocyclus actinochilus, Chaetoceros criophilum, Corethron criophilum, Thalassiothrix antarctica and Nitzschia cylindrus. In the dendrogram of similarities of species composition, two groups of stations were distinguished. The first one was composed of the phytoplankton stations and the second one was composed of the sea ice stations. Microautoradiographic analysis revealed photosynthesis in diatoms from plankton and no photosynthesis in diatoms from brash ice after ice melting. Therefore, the sea ice diatoms could not be regarded as an inoculum for the phytoplankton diatoms in the area studied.