Composition and significance of picophytoplankton in Antarctic waters

Wright, Simon W.; Ishikawa, Akira; Marchant, Harvey J.; Davidson, Andrew T.; Enden, Rick L. van den; Nash, Geraldine V.

doi:10.1007/s00300-009-0582-9

Cited by 147 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Subsequent studies conducted in both coastal (Worden et al, 2004) and open ocean waters (Goericke, 1998;Grob et al, 2007), which did not involve cell sorting, supported Li's observations. Moreover, studies based on size-fractionated pigment analysis also suggest a wide distribution of these small photosynthetic eukaryotes (Latasa and Bidigare, 1998;Wright et al, 2009). Recent progress using molecular approaches has begun to reveal their diversity (Moon-van der Staay et al, 2000;Díez et al, 2001;Vaulot et al, 2008;Worden and Not, 2008) showing a dominance of prymnesiophytes, pelagophytes and prasinophytes in marine environments (for example, see Moon-van der Staay et al, 2001;Romari and Vaulot, 2004;Not et al, 2004;Fuller et al, 2006a, b;Viprey et al, 2008;Liu et al, 2009) and lately of chrysophytes (Fuller et al, 2006b;McDonald et al, 2007;Lepère et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant CO2 fixation by small prymnesiophytes in the subtropical and tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean

et al. 2010

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Global estimates indicate the oceans are responsible for approximately half of the carbon dioxide fixed on Earth. Organisms p5 lm in size dominate open ocean phytoplankton communities in terms of abundance and CO 2 fixation, with the cyanobacterial genera Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus numerically the most abundant and more extensively studied compared with small eukaryotes. However, the contribution of specific taxonomic groups to marine CO 2 fixation is still poorly known. In this study, we show that among the phytoplankton, small eukaryotes contribute significantly to CO 2 fixation (44%) because of their larger cell volume and thereby higher cell-specific CO 2 fixation rates. Within the eukaryotes, two groups, herein called Euk-A and Euk-B, were distinguished based on their flow cytometric signature. Euk-A, the most abundant group, contained cells 1.8±0.1 lm in size while Euk-B was the least abundant but cells were larger (2.8±0.2 lm). The Euk-B group comprising prymnesiophytes (73±13%) belonging largely to lineages with no close cultured counterparts accounted for up to 38% of the total primary production in the subtropical and tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean, suggesting a key role of this group in oceanic CO 2 fixation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant CO2 fixation by small prymnesiophytes in the subtropical and tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean

et al. 2010

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“…Picoplankton contribution was unlikely to have had any major importance during the sampling periods, as these very small forms are generally not a relevant component within the Southern Ocean (Scott and Marchant, 2005), although within the oligotrophic Pacific Antarctic sector this fraction was estimated as 7-33% of the total phytoplankton biomass (Wright et al, 2009). In our work, a pronounced relative contribution of cryptophytes was primarily associated with lower Chl-a (b 1 mg m − 3 ), contrasting other studies that have reported a high abundance of cryptophytes in association with higher Chl-a (N 1 mg m − 3 ) at other sites across the BS or in adjacent regions (Mendes et al, 2013;Moline and Prézelin, 1996;Moline et al, 2004;Rodriguez et al, 2002).…”

Section: Phytoplankton and Environmental Factors: Spatial Variabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of oceanographic features on spatial and interannual variability of phytoplankton in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica

Gonçalves-Araujo

Souza

Tavano

et al. 2015

Journal of Marine Systems

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“…Investigations of protist composition and distribution in the Southern Ocean mainly used traditional microscopic (Kopczynska et al 2007;Chang et al 2013) or pigment extraction based (Peeken 1997) methods or a combination of both (Ning et al 1996;Ishikawa et al 2002;Wright et al 2009). However, microscopy approaches have difficulties in identifying small cells (\10 lm), and thus, this fraction is understudied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The introduction of high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) into marine biology complemented microscopy and simple biomass investigations of marine phytoplankton. Analyzing group-specific marker pigments, using HPLC analysis, allows determining and distinguishing different size classes within the phytoplankton, including pico-and nanoplankton (Peeken 1997;Wulff and Wangberg 2004;Wright et al 2009). However, the extraction of pigments from filtered samples followed by HPLC has a low taxonomical resolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Protist community composition in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean during austral summer 2010

et al. 2013

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Knowledge about the protist diversity of the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean is scarce. We tested the hypothesis that distinct protist community assemblages characterize large-scale water masses. Therefore, we determined the composition and biogeography of late summer protist assemblages along a transect from the coast of New Zealand to the eastern Ross Sea. We used state of the art molecular approaches, such as automated ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis and 454-pyrosequencing, combined with high-performance liquid chromatography pigment analysis to study the protist assemblage. We found distinct biogeographic patterns defined by the environmental conditions in the particular region. Different water masses harbored different microbial communities. In contrast to the Arctic Ocean, picoeukaryotes had minor importance throughout the investigated transect and showed very low contribution south of the Polar Front. Dinoflagellates, Syndiniales, and small stramenopiles were dominating the sequence assemblage in the Subantarctic Zone, whereas the relative abundance of diatoms increased southwards, in the Polar Frontal Zone and Antarctic Zone. South of the Polar Front, most sequences belonged to haptophytes. This study delivers a comprehensive and taxon detailed overview of the protist composition in the investigated area during the austral summer 2010.

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Composition and significance of picophytoplankton in Antarctic waters

Cited by 147 publications

References 42 publications

Significant CO2 fixation by small prymnesiophytes in the subtropical and tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean

Significant CO2 fixation by small prymnesiophytes in the subtropical and tropical northeast Atlantic Ocean

Influence of oceanographic features on spatial and interannual variability of phytoplankton in the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica

Protist community composition in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean during austral summer 2010

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