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Marine phytoplankton at the Weddell Sea ice edge: Seasonal changes at the specific level

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Summary

The Antarctic ice edge acts as a dynamic frontal system on the phytoplankton in the water column. Austral spring and autumn cruises to the Weddell Sea ice edge provided the opportunity to compare phytoplankton at the beginning of biological spring and at the end of biological autumn. The USCGC icebreakers Westwind (1983) and Glacier (1986) went into the sea ice, and the RV Melville (1983 and 1986) completed the transects in the adjacent open ocean. Field samples were observed alive on board ship to record different lifestages near the ice edge. In both seasons cell numbers were low under the ice, and single cells or short chains were the common growth habit. In spring in the open ocean, long chains of vegetative cells with large vacuoles and gelatinous colonies of diatoms and of prymnesiophytes dominated; in autumn in the open ocean close to the accreting ice edge, short chains, single cells, and resting spores were mostly packed with storage products. Enlarged cell diameters and auxospores also occurred near the ice cover in the autumn. Species from the following genera are included: the diatoms Leptocylindrus, Stellarima, Thalassiosira, Eucampia, Corethron, and Chaetoceros, the prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis, and the chrysophyte Distephanus.

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

    Greta A. Fryxell

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Fryxell, G.A. Marine phytoplankton at the Weddell Sea ice edge: Seasonal changes at the specific level. Polar Biol 10, 1–18 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238285

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00238285

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