Phytoplankton as indicators for eutrophication in Europe's regional seas

• Main Author: McQuatters-Gollop, Abigail
• Other Authors: School of Biological and Marine Sciences
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Plymouth 2008
• Subjects: North East Atlantic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/522; https://doi.org/10.24382/4302

Eutrophication of marine and coastal waters is a growing concern throughout Europe's regional seas and an historical problem in the Black Sea and regions of the North-East Atlantic, particularly the North Sea. As the base of the marine pelagic food web, phytoplankton are sensitive indicators of environmental change and therefore may be used as indicators of eutrophication for the monitoring, management and mitigation of the effects of nutrient loading on coastal and marine ecosystems. However, due to the interactive effects of climate and eutrophication, it can be difficult to separate the climate-driven response of phytoplankton from changes induced by excess nutrients. Therefore, the aim of this work is to separate these two signals in order to explore eutrophication effects. Without historical knowledge of 'pristine' or unimpacted ecosystem states it is difficult to identify and assess the severity and magnitude of change. Even where spatially and temporally comprehensive ecological datasets are available, equivalent nutrient timeseries are rare and a method of linking phytoplankton dynamics to eutrophication is required. Because open sea ecosystems are less impacted by anthropogenic nutrients than those near shore, offshore regions may be used as reference areas in comparison with coastal systems to investigate the effects of nutrient loading. Changes observed solely in coastal systems are most likely a result of local processes (such as eutrophication) while those observed in both open sea and coastal areas are probably a response to large-scale drivers (such as climate). Therefore the comparison of coastal and open sea data may reveal different (or similar) patterns of change in phytoplankton indicators. Throughout most of the North-East Atlantic climate appears to override the effects of nutrients on phytoplankton dynamics, although the two drivers have been found to have synergistic effects resulting in increasing chlorophyll levels in the coastal North Sea. Additionally, the 1980s North-East Atlantic ...