Diel periodicity in phytoplankton productivity

Daily variation in phytoplankton productivity influences the dynamics and linkages between several large scale processes in aquatic ecosystems. As part of an opening address to the 5th International workshop for the Group for Aquatic Productivity (GAP), the daily patterns of variability in photosynthesis for different algal classes was introduced and accompanied by a discussion of the sources of environmental and endogenous regulation of repeating biological oscillations that occur in phytoplankton on timescales of one day. It is suggested that one way to develop a database that serves to sort and predict phytoplankton variability over the day may be to encourage the creation of a temporal library. Such a library would be comprised of temporally fixed maps of circadian clock-controlled rhythms for individual species, as well as temporally variable maps of diel periodicities that only can be defined for a selected set of environmental conditions.