Abstract
Phytoplankton population dynamics play an important role in biogeochemical cycles in the Southern Ocean during austral summer. However, the relationship between phytoplankton community composition and primary productivity remains elusive in this region. We investigated the community composition and photosynthetic physiology of surface phytoplankton assemblages in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean from December 2010 to January 2011. There were significant latitudinal variations in hydrographic and biological parameters along 110°E and 140°E. Surface (5 m) chlorophyll a (chl a) concentrations measured with high-performance liquid chromatography varied between 0.18 and 0.99 mg m−3. The diatom contribution to the surface chl a biomass increased in the south, as estimated with algal chemotaxonomic pigment markers, while the contributions of haptophytes and chlorophytes decreased. In our photosynthesis–irradiance (P–E) curve experiment, the maximum photosynthetic rate normalized to chl a (\(P_{ \hbox{max} }^{*}\)), initial slope (α *), the maximum quantum yield of carbon fixation (Φ c max), and the photoinhibition index (β *) were higher in the region where diatoms contributed >50 % to the chl a biomass. In addition, there were statistically significant correlations between the diatom contribution to the chl a biomass and the P–E parameters. These results suggested that the changes in the phytoplankton community composition, primarily in diatoms, could strongly affect photosynthetic physiology in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to the captain and crew of the TR/V Umitaka-Maru, Dr. M. Moteki (Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology), and many other colleagues on board for their assistance in collecting samples during cruises. We thank Dr. T. Odate (National Institute of Polar Research) for giving a chance to join the JARE RAMEEC (Responses of Antarctic Marine Ecosystems to global Environmental Changes with Carbonate systems) project. We also thank the Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) for the production and distribution of satellite data. We appreciate the editor, Dr. A.-C. Alderkamp, and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments that improved the manuscript significantly. This work was supported in part by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the JARE RAMEEC project, and the JAXA GCOM-C RA4 (JX-PSPC-381949).
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Takao, S., Hirawake, T., Hashida, G. et al. Phytoplankton community composition and photosynthetic physiology in the Australian sector of the Southern Ocean during the austral summer of 2010/2011. Polar Biol 37, 1563–1578 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1542-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-014-1542-6