Estuaries and Coasts

, Volume 41, Issue 5, pp 1322–1336 | Cite as

Dinoflagellate Cysts Track Eutrophication in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

  • Andrea M. Price
  • Melissa M. Baustian
  • R. Eugene Turner
  • Nancy N. Rabalais
  • Gail L. Chmura
Article
First Online:
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:

Abstract

We examined organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts from one 210Pb-dated sediment core and 39 surface sediment samples from the northern Gulf of Mexico to determine the relationship between nutrient enrichment and cyst assemblages in this region characterized by oxygen deficiency. The core spans from 1962 to 1997 and its sampling location is directly influenced by the Mississippi River plume. Surface sediments were collected in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2014 and represent approximately 1 to 4 years of accumulation. A total of 57 cyst taxa were recorded, and four heterotrophic taxa in particular were found to increase in the top section (1986–1997) of the core—Brigantedinium spp., cysts of Archaeperidinium minutum, cysts of Polykrikos kofoidii, and Quinquecuspis concreta. These taxa show a similar increasing trend with variations in US fertilizer consumption and Mississippi River nitrate concentrations, both of which increased substantially in the 1970s and 1980s. The same four heterotrophic taxa dominated dinoflagellate cyst assemblages collected near the Mississippi River Bird’s Foot Delta where nutrient concentrations were higher, especially in 2014. We propose that these cyst taxa can be used as indicators of eutrophication in the Gulf of Mexico. A canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) supports this proposition. The CCA identified sea-surface nutrient concentrations, sea-surface temperature, and sea-surface salinity as the most important factors influencing the cyst assemblages. In addition, cysts produced by the potentially toxic dinoflagellates Pyrodinium bahamense and Lingulodinium polyedrum were documented, but did not appear to have increased over the past 50 years.

Keywords

Sediments Nutrients Mississippi River Atchafalaya River Plankton Hypoxia Dead zone 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is acknowledged for providing partial funding via a graduate scholarship (CGS-D3) to AMP and a Discovery Grant to GLC. This work was supported by a Geological Society of America research grant awarded to AMP. We thank Zingyi Zhang and Wonjun Cho for their lab assistance and McGill’s work study program that funded them, Wendy Morrison (LUMCON) for her assistance at LUMCON, Charles Milan (Louisiana State University) for his role in dating the sediment core, and Vera Pospelova (University of Victoria), Raja Sengupta (McGill University), and Suzanne Leroy (Brunel University) for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Support for ship time was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research, under awards NA06OP0528 and NA09NOS4780204 to Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, awards NA06OP0529 and NA09NOS4780230 to Louisiana State University, and NGOMEX06 funding to NNR and RET. The crew of the R/V Pelican is thanked for assistance with sample collection. We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments which helped improve this manuscript.

Supplementary material

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Copyright information

© Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  • Andrea M. Price
    • 1
    • 2
  • Melissa M. Baustian
    • 3
  • R. Eugene Turner
    • 2
  • Nancy N. Rabalais
    • 2
    • 4
  • Gail L. Chmura
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of GeographyMcGill UniversityMontrealCanada
  2. 2.Department of Oceanography and Coastal SciencesLouisiana State UniversityBaton RougeUSA
  3. 3.The Water Institute of the GulfBaton RougeUSA
  4. 4.Louisiana Universities Marine ConsortiumChauvinUSA

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