Abstract
The anticyclonic eddies (ACEs) shed from the Kuroshio intrusion often interact with internal waves (IWs). Those interactions are complex but play an important role in the biogeochemical effects in the northern South China Sea (SCS). However, previous studies on these interactions have mainly focused on physical processes, while biological responses to their interactions have been unclear. In this study, results of two field cruises with focus on two sets of high-frequency time-series observations over the continental slope of the SCS during the summers of 2016 and 2017 revealed that phytoplankton in the euphotic zone were affected by both IWs and ACEs shed from the Kuroshio Current. Distinct surface distributions of phytoplankton were attributable to different sources of the water, Kuroshio intrusions and the plume from the Pearl River. However, similarities of phytoplankton biomass and community composition in the subsurface chlorophyll maximum layer in both years could be explained by the similar upward transport of nutrients induced by combinations of small-amplitude IWs and mature ACEs in 2016 and large-amplitude IWs in 2017. The distinct vertical distributions of the phytoplankton community in both years were attributable to the different responses of phytoplankton groups to the direct effects of isopycnal uplifting, bottom-up controls, and top-down controls. Our results showed that the ecological effects of the interactions between IWs and ACEs shed from the Kuroshio water were complex, and those complex effects further influenced the structure of this marginal sea ecosystem.
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Data availability
Data used in the analysis are available in public repositories. The data of daily photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) with a resolution of 9 km was sourced from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) database during the observations in 2016 and 2017 (available at https://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/). The MODIS sunglint images were derived from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System (level-1B, https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/search/order/4/MYD02QKM--61/2016-08-10,2017-08-20/DB/117.6,22.7,119.2,21.1). Tidal information, including water level, zonal velocity, meridional velocity, and the velocity vector in the Luzon Strait during the observations in 2016 and 2017, was obtained from the regional tidal solution of the Oregon State University Tidal Inversion Software (OTIS) (https://github.com/EarthAndSpaceResearch/TMD_Matlab_Toolbox_v2.5) (Egbert & Erofeeva 2002). Daily sea level anomaly (SLA) and absolute dynamic topography (ADT) data with a resolution of 0.25° were derived from the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service (CMEMS; https://resources.marine.copernicus.eu/?option=com_csw&view=details&product_id=SEALEVEL_GLO_PHY_L4_REP_OBSERVATIONS_008_047). The processed data and figures have https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/KD42U and can be obtained from https://osf.io/kd42u/files/osfstorage.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Lizhen Lin and Lei Wang for their assistance in phytoplankton sample collections and analyses, Siguang Liu for hydrographic data, and Yueyue Si for the clearance rates and ingestion rates of mesozooplankton on phytoplankton data. This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 42122044, 42206100, 91958203, 42276209, 42006019). Date and samples were collected onboard of R/V Yanping implementing the open research cruises NORC2016-04 and NORC2017-04 supported by NSFC shiptime Sharing Projects (project numbers: 41549904 and 41649904). Project supported by Innovation Group Project of Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai)(NO.311022005) were acknowledged.
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Conceptualization: Xin Liu, Bangqin Huang;
Methodology: Yanping Zhong, Xiaolin Bai, Wenfang Lu, Zhida Huang;
Formal analysis and investigation: Yanping Zhong, Xin Liu, Jixin Chen;
Writing—original draft preparation: Yanping Zhong, Xin Liu, Xiaolin Bai;
Writing—review and editing: Yanping Zhong, Xin Liu, Xiaolin Bai, Edward A. Laws, Lingqi Ma;
Funding acquisition: Xin Liu, Yanping Zhong, Xiaolin Bai, Wupeng Xiao.
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Zhong, Y., Bai, X., Laws, E.A. et al. Phytoplankton community responses to the combined effects of internal waves and anticyclonic eddies shed from the Kuroshio intrusion. Ocean Dynamics 74, 539–554 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-024-01618-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-024-01618-7