Photobiological studies of Ross Sea phytoplankton

• Main Author: Tozzi, Sasha
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: W&M ScholarWorks 2010
• Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Marine Biology; Ross Sea; Antarc*; Antarctica; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd/1539616879; https://doi.org/10.25773/v5-7qdh-5n41; https://scholarworks.wm.edu/context/etd/article/2446/viewcontent/3411549.pdf

The Ross Sea polynya is characterized by high spatial and temporal variability and by an annual cycle of sea ice retreat, water column stratification, large phytoplankton blooms, and months of complete darkness. This region is also highly susceptible to increasingly changing climatic conditions that will significantly affect the hydrography, iron supply, primary production patterns and carbon cycling. This project focused on analyzing how differences in photosynthetic traits between the two major bloom-forming functional groups in the polynya, diatoms and the prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis antarctica, and investigate if these differences can explain their dominance and succession. The study was conducted as part of the Controls on Ross Sea Algal Community Structure (CORSAC) program during two cruises in December 2005-January, 2006, and November-December, 2006. A fast repetition rate fluorometer (FRRF) was used to assess photochemical efficiency on natural phytoplankton assemblages and on monoclonal cultures. Measurements were made on cultures to determinate differences in photorecovery kinetics, as well on a suite of experiments performed to test the effects of temperature, iron, CO2 and micronutrients had on natural assemblages. In addition, FRRF measurements were made on 1,182 discrete samples representative of 98 profiles collected over the two cruises. Phaeocystis antarctica consistently photorecovered faster than the diatoms Pseudo-nitzschia sp., indicating different photosynthetic strategies and ecological niches; in addition, temperature and iron significantly promoted photosynthetic quantum yields, indicating a diffuse iron limitation of the natural assemblages used for the experiments and a high susceptibility to forecasted temperature increases in the region. Experiments also demonstrated that the Ross Sea phytoplankton is capable of maintaining high photosynthetic capacity after extensive periods in the dark. The dominance and successions in the blooms appears to be controlled by a combination of ...