Marker pigments and carbon biomass of phytoplankton on the northeastern Mediterranean Sea coast
Konucu, M.; Eker-Develi, E.; Örek, H.; Basduvar, S.; Kideys, A.E. (2022). Marker pigments and carbon biomass of phytoplankton on the northeastern Mediterranean Sea coast. J. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 550: 151718. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jembe.2022.151718
In: Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. Elsevier: New York. ISSN 0022-0981; e-ISSN 1879-1697, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Konucu, M., more
- Eker-Develi, E.
- Örek, H.
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- Basduvar, S.
- Kideys, A.E., more
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| Abstract |
Marker pigments are used to determine taxonomic composition and biomass of microalgae in different oceanic regions. However, sometimes discrepancies are encountered between microscopy and marker pigment based approaches principally because of altering environmental factors influencing diversity of phytoplankton. In the present investigation, marker pigments from HPLC-CHEMTAX analysis concurrent with carbon biomass estimated by microscopy were investigated during 2015–2016 at weekly intervals in the eastern Mediterranean Sea coast. Counting nanoplankton (in particular non-calcifying haptophytes and prasinophytes) in live samples provided a better correlation between microscopy and pigment-based results than in fixed samples. Nanoplankton and picoplankton constituted ~56% of chlorophyll a based on HPLC-CHEMTAX analysis in the sampling location. Diatoms were the most prominent taxa based on both pigments and microscopy results in the study area. A significant positive correlation between PAR values and CHEMTAX derived chlorophyll a values of cyanobacteria and cryptophytes was observed. While there was no correlation between carbon biomass and Chl a concentrations (p > 0.05) for the whole dataset, a significant correlation appeared between these parameters when the data was split as high and low C:Chl a samples. |
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