Abstract
Water samples were collected in order to study the spatial variation of photosynthetic pigments and phytoplankton community composition in the Lembeh Strait (Indonesia) and the Kelantan River Estuary (Malaysia) during July and August 2016, respectively. Phytoplankton photosynthetic pigments were detected using high performance liquid chromatography combining with the CHEMTAX software to confirm the Chl a biomass and community composition. The Chl a concentration was low at surface in the Lembeh Strait, which it was 0.580–0.682 μg/L, with the average (0.620±0.039) μg/L. Nevertheless, the Chl a concentration fluctuated violently at surface in the Kelantan River Estuary, in which the biomass was 0.299–3.988 μg/L, with the average (0.922± 0.992) μg/L. The biomass at bottom water was higher than at surface in the Kelantan River Estuary, in which the Chl a concentration was 0.704–2.352 μg/L, with the average (1.493±0.571) μg/L. Chl b, zeaxanthin and fucoxanthin were three most abundant pigments in the Lembeh Strait. As a consequence, phytoplankton community composition was different in the two study areas. In the Lembeh Strait, prasinophytes (26.48%±0.83%) and Synechococcus (25.73%±4.13%) occupied ~50% of the Chl a biomass, followed by diatoms (20.49%±2.34%) and haptophytes T8 (15.13%±2.42%). At surface water in the Kelantan River Estuary, diatoms (58.53%±18.44%) dominated more than half of the phytoplankton biomass, followed by Synechococcus (27.27%±14.84%) and prasinophytes (7.00%±4.39%). It showed the similar status at the bottom water in the Kelantan River Estuary, where diatoms, Synechococcus and prasinophytes contributed 64.89%±15.29%, 16.23%±9.98% and 8.91%±2.62%, respectively. The different phytoplankton community composition between the two regions implied that the bottom up control affected the phytoplankton biomass in the Lembeh Strait where the oligotrophic water derived from the West Pacific Ocean. The terrigenous nutrients supplied the diatoms growing, and pico-phytoplankton was grazed through top down control in the Kelantan River Estuary.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Azam F, Fenchel T, Field J G, et al. 1983. The ecological role of watercolumn microbes in the sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 10: 257–263, doi: 10.3354/meps010257
Bianchi T S, Allison M A, Rouge B, et al. 2013. Biogeochemical Dynamics at Major River-Coastal Interfaces: Linkages with Global Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Brun P, Vogt M, Payne M R, et al. 2015. Ecological niches of open ocean phytoplankton taxa. Limnology and Oceanography, 60(3): 1020–1038, doi: 10.1002/lno.10074
Chen Weifang, Liu Qian, Huh Chih-An, et al. 2010. Signature of the Mekong River plume in the western South China Sea revealed by radium isotopes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 115(C12): C12002, doi: 10.1029/2010JC006460
Chen Y L L. 2005. Spatial and seasonal variations of nitrate-based new production and primary production in the South China Sea. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 52(2): 319–340, doi: 10.1016/j.dsr.2004.11.001
Chisholm S W, Olson R J, Zettler E R, et al. 1988. A novel free-living prochlorophyte abundant in the oceanic euphotic zone. Nature, 334(6180): 340–343, doi: 10.1038/334340a0
Chu P C, Fan C W. 2001. Low salinity, cool-core cyclonic eddy detected northwest of Luzon during the South China Sea monsoon experiment (SCSMEX) in July 1998. Journal of Oceanography, 57(5): 549–563, doi: 10.1023/A:1021251519067
Chung C C, Huang C Y, Gong G C, et al. 2014. Influence of the Changjiang River flood on Synechococcus ecology in the surface waters of the East China Sea. Microbial Ecology, 67(2): 273–285, doi: 10.1007/s00248-013-0299-8
Eppley R W, Peterson B J. 1979. Particulate organic matter flux and planktonic new production in the deep ocean. Nature, 282(5740): 677–680, doi: 10.1038/282677a0
Falkowski P. 2012. Ocean science: The power of plankton. Nature, 483(7387): S17–S20, doi: 10.1038/483S17a
Fasham M J R. 2003. Ocean Biogeochemistry: The Role of the Ocean Carbon Cycle in Global Change. Berlin: Springer
Field C B, Behrenfeld M J, Randerson J T, et al. 1998. Primary production of the biosphere: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components. Science, 281(5374): 237–240, doi: 10.1126/science. 281.5374.237
Fogg G E. 1986. Review lecture: picoplankton. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 228(1250): 1–30, doi: 10.1098/rspb.1986.0037
Furuya K, Hayashi M, Yabushita Y. 1998. HPLC determination of phytoplankton pigments using N,N-dimethylformamide. Journal of Oceanography, 54(2): 199–203, doi: 10.1007/BF02751695
Goldman J C. 1993. Potential role of large oceanic diatoms in new primary production. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, 40(1): 159–168, d o i: 10.1016/0967-0637(93)90059-C
Gordon A L. 2005. Oceanography of the Indonesian seas and their throughflow. Oceanography, 18(4): 14–27, doi: 10.5670/oceanog
Jiang Zhibing, Liu Jingjing, Chen Jianfang, et al. 2014. Responses of summer phytoplankton community to drastic environmental changes in the Changjiang (Yangtze River) estuary during the past 50 years. Water Research, 54: 1–11, doi: 10.1016/j.watres. 2014.01.032
Latasa M. 2007. Improving estimations of phytoplankton class abundances using CHEMTAX. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 329: 13–21, doi: 10.3354/meps329013
Mackey M D, Mackey D J, Higgins H W, et al. 1996. CHEMTAX—a program for estimating class abundances from chemical markers: application to HPLC measurements of phytoplankton. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 144: 265–283, doi: 10.3354/meps144265
Michaels A F, Silver M W. 1988. Primary production, sinking fluxes and the microbial food web. Deep Sea Research Part A. Oceanographic Research Papers, 35(4): 473–490, doi: 10.1016/0198-0149(88)90126-4
Redfield A C. 1958. The biological control of chemical factors in the environment. American Scientist, 46(3): 205–221
Santos L D, Gourvil P, Tragin M, et al. 2017. Diversity and oceanic distribution of prasinophytes clade VII, the dominant group of green algae in oceanic waters. The ISME Journal, 11(2): 512–528, doi: 10.1038/ismej.2016.120
Sherr E B, Sherr B F. 1994. Bacterivory and herbivory: Key roles of phagotrophic protists in pelagic food webs. Microbial Ecology, 28(2): 223–235, doi: 10.1007/BF00166812
Tseng Y F, Lin J, Dai M, et al. 2014. Joint effect of freshwater plume and coastal upwelling on phytoplankton growth off the Changjiang River. Biogeosciences, 11(2): 409–423, doi: 10.5194/bg-11-409-2014
Vranes K, Gordon A L, Ffield A. 2002. The heat transport of the Indonesian throughflow and implications for the Indian Ocean Heat Budget. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 49(7–8): 1391–1410, doi: 10.1016/S0967-0645(01)00150-3
Wang Lei, Huang Bangqin, Liu Xin, et al. 2015a. The modification and optimizing of the CHEMTAX running in the South China Sea. Acta Oceanologica Sinica, 34(2): 124–131, doi: 10.1007/s13131-015-0621-z
Wang Lei, Leng Xiaoyun, Sun Qingyang, et al. 2015b. The distribution of phytoplankton community structure in the Sunda Shelf and the Strait of Malacca during spring intermonsoon. Haiyang Xuebao (in Chinese), 37(2): 120–129
Wong G T F, Chung S W, Shiah F K, et al. 2002. Nitrate anomaly in the upper nutricline in the northern South China Sea—Evidence for nitrogen fixation. Geophysical Research Letters, 29(23): 2097
Wong G T F, Ku T L, Mulholland M, et al. 2007. The Southeast Asian Time-series Study (SEATS) and the biogeochemistry of the South China Sea—an overview. Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography, 54(14-15): 1434–1447, doi: 10.1016/j.dsr2.2007.05.012
Wyrtki K. 1961. Physical oceanography of the southeast Asian waters, NAGA report vol. 2, Scientific Results of Marine Investigations of the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. La Jolla, California: Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Xu Y, Ishizaka J, Yamaguchi H, et al. 2013. Relationships of interannual variability in SST and phytoplankton blooms with giant jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai) outbreaks in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. Journal of Oceanography, 69(5): 511–526, doi: 10.1007/s10872-013-0189-1
Zapata M, Rodríguez F, Garrido J L. 2000. Separation of chlorophylls and carotenoids from marine phytoplankton: a new HPLC method using a reversed-phase C8 column and pyridine-containing mobile phases. Marine Ecology Progress Series, 195: 29–45, doi: 10.3354/meps195029
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the graphic processing software of Ocean Data View (Version 4.5.7) contributed by Schlitzer R., https://doi.org/odv.awi.de, 2013 and OriginPro 9.0 (OriginLab Corporation©, Northampton, MA 01060 USA).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Foundation item: The National Key R&D Program of China under contract Nos 2017YFC0604902 and 2017YFC1405101; the China-Indonesia Maritime Cooperation Fund Project “China-Indonesia Bitung Ecological Station Establishment”; the China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund and HICoE-MOHE Grant IOES–2014.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wang, L., Huang, H., An, L. et al. Comparison of photosynthetic pigments and phytoplankton assemblages in two types of coastal regions in Southeast Asia-Indonesian Throughflow and river estuary. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 37, 18–27 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1284-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1284-3