Planktonic primary production in the German Wadden Sea |
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Authors: | Tillmann, Urban Hesse, Karl-J. Colijn, Franciscus |
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Affiliation: | FTZ Westküste, Hafentörn, D-25761 Büsum, Germany |
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Abstract: | By combining weekly data of irradiance, attenuation and chlorophylla concentrations with photosynthesis (P) versus light intensity(E) curve characteristics, the annual cycle of planktonic primaryproduction in the estuarine part of the Northfrisian WaddenSea was computed for a 2 year period. Daily water column particulategross production ranged from 5 to 2200 mg C m2 day1and showed a seasonal pattern similar to chlorophyll a. Budgetcalculation yielded annual gross particulate primary productionsof 124 and 176 g C m2 year1 in 1995 and 1996,respectively. Annual amounts of phytoplankton respiration, calculatedaccording to a two-compartment model of Langdon [in Li,W.K.W.and Maestrini,S.Y. (eds), Measurement of Primary Productionfrom the Molecular to the Global Scale. International Councilfor the Exploration of the Sea, Copenhagen, 1993, pp. 2036],and dissolved production in 1996, were both in the range of2439 g C m2 year1. Annual total net productionwas thus very similar to particulate gross production (127 and177 g C m2 year1 in 1995 and 1996, respectively).Phytoplankton growth was low or even negative in winter. Inspring and summer, production/biomass (Pr/B) ratios varied from0.2 up to 1.7. Phytoplankton growth during the growth seasonalways surpassed average flushing time in the area, thus underliningthe potential of local phytoplankton bloom development in thispart of the Wadden Sea. The chlorophyll-specific maximum photosyntheticrate (PBmax) ranged from 0.8 to 9.9 mg C mg1 Chl h1and was strongly correlated with water temperature (r2 = 0.67).By contrast, there was no clear seasonal cycle in B, which rangedfrom 0.007 to 0.039 mg C mg1 Chl h1 (µmolphotons m2 s1)1. Its variability was muchless than PBmax and independent of temperature. The magnitudeand part of the variability of PBmax and B are presumably causedby changes in species composition, as evidenced from the rangeof these parameters found among 10 predominant diatom speciesisolated from the Wadden Sea. The ratio of average light conditionsin the water column (Eav) to the light saturation parameterEk indicates that primary production in the Wadden Sea regionunder study is predominantly controlled by light limitationand that nutrient limitation was likely to occur for a few hoursper day only during 5 (dissolved inorganic nitrogen) to 10 (PO4,Si) weeks in the 2 year period investigated. |
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