The North Atlantic spring bloom is one of the largest annually occurring phytoplankton blooms in the world ocean. The present study investigated the potential effects of climate change variables (temperature and pCO 2 ) on trophic dynamics during the bloom using a shipboard continuous culture system. The treatments examined were (1) 12°C and 390 ppm CO 2 (ambient), (2) 12°C and 690 ppm CO 2 (high pCO 2 ), (3) 16°C and 390 ppm CO 2 (high temperature), and (4) 16 °C and 690 ppm CO 2 (greenhouse). Individually, increasing temperature and pCO 2 initially resulted in significantly higher total microzooplankton abundance and grazing rates over the ambient treatment mid-experiment, with significantly greater increases still in the greenhouse treatment. By the end of the experiment, microzooplankton abundance was highest in the 2 low temperature treatments, which were dominated by small taxa, while the larger ciliate Strombidium sp. numerically dominated the high-temperature treatment. Microzooplankton community composition was dominated by small taxa in the greenhouse treatment, but total abundance declined significantly by the end after peaking mid-experiment. This decrease occurred concurrently with the growth of a potentially unpalatable phytoplankton assemblage dominated by coccolithophores. Our results suggest that indirect effects on microzooplankton community structure from changes in phytoplankton community composition as a result of changing temperature or pCO 2 were likely more important than direct effects on microzooplankton physiology. Similar changes in trophic dynamics and whole plankton community composition may also be important for future climate-driven changes in the North Atlantic spring bloom assemblage.KEY WORDS: Microzooplankton · Herbivory · Temperature · pCO 2 · North Atlantic spring bloom · Climate change
Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherMar Ecol Prog Ser 388: [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] 2009 also be an important food source for mesozooplankton and, as such, can contribute to carbon transfer to higher trophic levels (Sherr et al. 1986, Atkinson 1996, Schnetzer & Caron 2005.The annually occurring and spatially extensive spring bloom of phytoplankton in the North Atlantic Ocean has been extensively studied since the early days of oceanography (e.g. Sverdrup 1953). The US Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS;Ducklow & Harris 1993), US Marine Light Mixed Layer research initiative (MLML;Plueddemann et al. 1995), UK Biogeochemical Ocean Flux Study (BOFS;Savidge et al. 1992), UK Plankton Reactivity in the Marine Environment program (PRIME; Savidge & Williams 2001), and French 'Programme Océan Multidisciplinaire Méso Echelle' (POMME; Memery et al. 2005) have all been large-scale efforts to combine physical, chemical, biological, and modeling approaches to understand ecosystem dynamics throughout the stages of the bloom. This phytoplankton bloom is initiated by a reduction in mixed layer depth and is typified by an i...