2024-03-29T05:19:02Zhttp://digital.csic.es/dspace-oai/requestoai:digital.csic.es:10261/537632021-05-05T08:42:33Zcom_10261_126com_10261_8col_10261_379
Bio-optical provinces in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and their biogeographical relevance
Taylor, B.B.
Torrecilla, Elena
Bernhardt, A.
Taylor, M.H.
Peeken, I.
Röttgers, Rüdiger
Piera, Jaume
Bracher, Astrid
21 pages, 9 figures, 5 tables
The relationship between phytoplankton assemblages and the associated optical properties of the water body is important for the further development of algorithms for large-scale remote sensing of phytoplankton biomass and the identification of phytoplankton functional types (PFTs), which are often representative for different biogeochemical export scenarios. Optical in-situ measurements aid in the identification of phytoplankton groups with differing pigment compositions and are widely used to validate remote sensing data. In this study we present results from an interdisciplinary cruise aboard the RV Polarstern along a north-to-south transect in the eastern Atlantic Ocean in November 2008. Phytoplankton community composition was identified using a broad set of in-situ measurements. Water samples from the surface and the depth of maximum chlorophyll concentration were analyzed by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), flow cytometry, spectrophotometry and microscopy. Simultaneously, the above- and underwater light field was measured by a set of high spectral resolution (hyperspectral) radiometers. An unsupervised cluster algorithm applied to the measured parameters allowed us to define bio-optical provinces, which we compared to ecological provinces proposed elsewhere in the literature. As could be expected, picophytoplankton was responsible for most of the variability of PFTs in the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Our bio-optical clusters agreed well with established provinces and thus can be used to classify areas of similar biogeography. This method has the potential to become an automated approach where satellite data could be used to identify shifting boundaries of established ecological provinces or to track exceptions from the rule to improve our understanding of the biogeochemical cycles in the ocean
We thank Gerhard Kattner and two anonymous
referees for their valuable comments and their help to improve the manuscript. We thank AWI, Helmholtz Impulse Fond, UTM-CSIC and OCEANET for funding. Part of this study was performed during a visit of Elena Torrecilla at the PHYTOOPTICS group supported by the Spanish National Research Council CSIC
(project ANERIS PIF08-015) and the Spanish Ministry of Education (PhD European Mentoring Program). We are grateful for the products processed and distributed by ACRI-ST GlobColour service, supported by EU FP7 MyOcean & ESA GlobColour Projects, using ESA ENVISAT MERIS data, NASA MODIS and SeaWiFS
data. We thank Erika Allhusen, Charlotte Klein, Mirko Lunau, Eva-Maria N¨othig and Sonja Wiegmann for help with the work on the field samples, Mariana Soppa and Gerd Rohardt for further data analysis. We thank the crew, principal investigators and other scientists on board the RV Polarstern cruise ANT-XXV/1 for support on board and fruitful discussions afterwards
Peer reviewed
2011-12-12
artículo
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
Biogeosciences 8: 3609-3629 (2011)
1726-4170
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/53763
10.5194/bg-8-3609-2011
1726-4189
en
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-8-3609-2011
open
European Geosciences Union