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Undetected Blooms in Prince William Sound: Using Multiple Techniques to Elucidate the Base of the Summer Food Web

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Abstract

Prince William Sound supports many commercially and culturally important species. The phytoplankton community dynamics which support and sustain the high biomass and diversity of this ecosystem are largely unknown. The aim of this study was to describe the phytoplankton community composition during the summer, the time at which this system supports many additional migrants and commercially important fisheries. Phytoplankton community composition (pigments), dissolved nutrients, Secchi depth, total and particulate organic carbon and nitrogen, and export to deep water were measured during the summers of 2008–2010. In addition, natural abundance stable isotopes (δ13C and δ15N) of particulate organic matter (POM) and faunal samples were measured in 2010. The analysis of the phytoplankton community composition using multivariate statistics showed that changes over the summer were driven by changes in the proportion of the dominant groups: diatoms, dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, cryptophytes, chlorophytes, and prasinophytes. These changes were driven by changes in nutrients including an organic nitrogen source, phosphate, and silica and correspond to shifts in particulate concentrations. A consistent pattern was observed each year: a large Noctiluca sp. bloom in June concurrent with low nutrients, low diversity, and high particulate organic carbon (POC) concentrations was followed by a shift in the phytoplankton community to a more diverse smaller size class community in July and equilibrating in August. This annual summer bloom could be an important contributor to the energy and nutrient inputs at the base of the regional marine food web.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Kathryn Wheatly, Ryan Wolt, Ian Davis, Michelle Cortez, Olivia Lee, and Sylvia Osterrider for their extensive help in the field. Funding for this project was provided by various grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Generous travel grants from Erma and Luke Mooney, Marine Biology Department at Texas A&M University at Galveston, and the Oceanography Department at Texas A&M University provided funds for travel to and from the field site. Allison McInnes was supported during the final writing stages by a Texas A&M University Dissertation Fellowship. The authors would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their thorough critique, improving the final version of this manuscript.

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Author notes

  1. Clifton C. Nunnally

    Present address: Department of Oceanography, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, 3146 TAMU, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Allison S. McInnes, Clifton C. Nunnally, Gilbert T. Rowe & Antonietta Quigg

  2. Department of Marine Biology, Texas A&M University at Galveston, 200 Seawolf Parkway, Galveston, TX, 77553, USA

    Gilbert T. Rowe, Randall W. Davis & Antonietta Quigg

  3. Oceans Institute (M470), University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Allison S. McInnes

  4. Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW, 2007, Australia

    Allison S. McInnes

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  1. Allison S. McInnes
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  2. Clifton C. Nunnally
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Correspondence to Allison S. McInnes.

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Communicated by James L. Pinckney

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McInnes, A.S., Nunnally, C.C., Rowe, G.T. et al. Undetected Blooms in Prince William Sound: Using Multiple Techniques to Elucidate the Base of the Summer Food Web. Estuaries and Coasts 38, 2227–2239 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12237-014-9924-0

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