Cell death drives the magnitude and community composition of phytoplankton and can result in the conversion of particulate organic carbon to dissolved organic carbon (DOC), thereby affecting carbon cycling in the aquatic food web. We used a membrane integrity probe (Sytox Green) to study the seasonal variation in the percentage of viable cells in the phytoplankton population in an estuary in the northern Baltic Sea for 21 months. The associated dissolved and particulate organic matter concentrations were also studied. The viable fraction of phytoplankton cells varied from \ 20% to almost 100%, with an average of 62%. Viability was highest when a single phytoplankton group (diatoms or dinoflagellates) dominated the community. Viability of sinking phytoplankton cells, including some motile species, was in general as high as in surface water. Changes in viability were not closely related to nutrient concentrations, virus-like particle abundance, seawater temperature or salinity. There was a weak but significant negative correlation between viability and DOC, although at this location, the DOC pool was mainly influenced by the inflow of riverine water. This study demonstrates that cell viability, and its relationship with carbon export, is highly variable in the complex microbial populations common within estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems.

Phytoplankton cell death is an important process in marine food webs, but the viability of natural phytoplankton communities remains unexplored in many ecosystems. In this study, we measured the viability of natural pico-and nanophytoplankton communities in the central and southern parts of the Baltic Sea (55°21 0 N, 17°06 0 E-60°18 0 N, 19°14 0 E) during spring (4th-15th April 2016) to assess differences among phytoplankton groups and the potential relationship between cell death and temperature, and inorganic nutrient availability. Cell viability was determined by SYTOX Green cell staining and flow cytometry at a total of 27 stations representing differing hydrographic regimes. Three general groups of phytoplankton (picocyanobacteria, picoeukaryotes, and nanophytoplankton) were identified by cytometry using pigment fluorescence and light scatter characteristics. The picocyanobacteria and picoeukaryotes had significantly higher cell viability than the nanophytoplankton population at all depths throughout the study area. Viability correlated positively with the photosynthetic efficiency (F v /F m , maximum quantum yield of photosystem II) as measured on the total phytoplankton community. However, an anticipated correlation with dissolved organic carbon was not observed. We found that the abiotic factors suggested to affect phytoplankton viability in other marine ecosystems were not as important in the Baltic Sea, and other biotic processes, e.g. processes related to species succession could have a more pronounced role.

Abstract. Microbial consumption of phytoplankton-derived organic carbon in the pelagic food web is an important component of the global C cycle. We studied C cycling in two phytoplankton–bacteria systems (non-axenic cultures of a dinoflagellate Apocalathium malmogiense and a cryptophyte Rhodomonas marina) in two complementary experiments. In the first experiment we grew phytoplankton and bacteria in nutrient-replete conditions and followed C processing at early exponential growth phase and twice later when the community had grown denser. Cell-specific primary production and total community respiration were up to 4 and 7 times higher, respectively, in the A. malmogiense treatments. Based on the optical signals, accumulating dissolved organic C (DOC) was degraded more in the R. marina treatments, and the rate of bacterial production to primary production was higher. Thus, the flow of C from phytoplankton to bacteria was relatively higher in R. marina treatments than in A. malmogiense treatments, which was further supported by faster 14C transfer from phytoplankton to bacterial biomass. In the second experiment we investigated consumption of the phytoplankton-derived DOC by bacteria. DOC consumption and transformation, bacterial production, and bacterial respiration were all higher in R. marina treatments. In both experiments A. malmogiense supported a bacterial community predominated by bacteria specialized in the utilization of less labile DOC (class Bacteroidia), whereas R. marina supported a community predominated by copiotrophic Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria. Our findings suggest that large dinoflagellates cycle relatively more C between phytoplankton biomass and the inorganic C pool, whereas small cryptophytes direct relatively more C to the microbial loop.