1. Examining the size-specific photosynthesis-irradiance parameters and relationship with phytoplankton types in a subtropical marginal sea
- Author
-
Bangqin Huang, Yong Qiu, Lei Wang, Haoran Liu, Edward A. Laws, Feipeng Wang, and Yuyuan Xie
- Subjects
Primary producers ,Primary production ,Ecology ,Taiwan Strait ,Marginal sea ,Irradiance ,General Decision Sciences ,Phytoplankton size class ,Subtropics ,Phytoplankton type ,Atmospheric sciences ,Photosynthesis ,Habitat ,Phytoplankton ,Environmental science ,P-I parameters ,Marine ecosystem ,Cycling ,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics ,QH540-549.5 - Abstract
Through photosynthesis, phytoplankton initiate material cycling and the flow of energy through marine ecosystems. The structure of marine ecosystems is sensitive to the size of primary producers, and size-specific photosynthesis-irradiance (P-I) parameters are required for modeling the size-specific primary production. We defined a phytoplankton type to be a group of phytoplankton communities with similar compositions and hypothesized that a function of phytoplankton types might be used to quantify systematic differences of P-I parameters between size classes (structural effects) and variations of the magnitudes of those parameters if the overlap between habitats was small (environmental effects). To test this hypothesis, we conducted a study to measure the size-specific P-I parameters of two size classes ( 2 μm) and pigment-based phytoplankton community structure in a marginal sea, the Taiwan Strait. Three phytoplankton types were classified, and type-based and size-specific P-I parameters were derived. The results demonstrated the potential of a type-based model to estimate P-I parameters for two phytoplankton size classes as well as different habitats. more...
- Published
- 2021