Factors affecting productivity in fertilized salt water
Edmonson, W.T. (1955). Factors affecting productivity in fertilized salt water, in: Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement): pp. 451-464
In: (1955). Papers in Marine Biology and Oceanography. Dedicated to Henry Bryant Bigelow, By His Former Students and Associates on the occasion of The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Founding of The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1955. Deep-Sea Research (1953), 3(Supplement). Pergamon Press: London & New York. 498 pp., more
In: Deep-Sea Research (1953). Pergamon: Oxford; New York. ISSN 0146-6291; e-ISSN 1878-2485, more
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| Abstract |
The response of phytoplankton populations to added nutrients was studied by filling large out-of-door concrete tanks with sea water, and adding phosphate and nitrate. In general there was an immediate increase in photosynthesis and in growth of the population. In some cases, but not all, addition of phosphate alone was ineffective. A large part of the variation in photosynthetic rate over a 40-day period is attributable to variation in the amount of light falling on the tanks, in the chlorophyll content of the phytoplankton, and m the phosphate concentration in the water. Large variations in the qualitative composition of the population had no apparent effect on this relation. The efficiency of the population in using light varied directly with the amount of fertilizer added, but not in proportion to it. Addition of nutrients to the bottles in which measurements of photosynthesis were made permitted evaluation of limiting factors. The rate of phosphorus absorption, measured either as decrease of phosphate in the water or increase of phosphorus in particulate form, was directly related to the rate of photosynthesis |
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