Going with the flow: assessing phytoplankton diversity ......1992 2008 2013 2014 Total phytoplankton...
Transcript of Going with the flow: assessing phytoplankton diversity ......1992 2008 2013 2014 Total phytoplankton...
Amelia Kolb
Gabriela Hannach
Lyndsey Sandwick
Going with the flow: assessing phytoplankton
diversity with the FlowCAM
Photo: Gabriela Hannach
Photo: Gabriela Hannach
Chlorophyll
Semi-quantitative microscopy
FlowCAM
1992 2014 2008 2013
Total phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll/L)
Photo: Gabriela Hannach
Diatoms
Large
Need high nutrients
Fast growth
Spring bloom Photo: Gabriela Hannach
Dinoflagellates
Photo: Gabriela Hannach
Smaller
Do better with low nutrients
Slower growth
Knowledge of phytoplankton community composition…
1. Improves understanding
of marine food web
2. Improves assessment of
human impacts
Piscivorous charismatic megafauna
Chlorophyll
Semi-quantitative microscopy
FlowCAM
1992 2014 2008 2013
Phytoplankton taxa: • Dominant, • Subdominant, or • Present
Total phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll/L)
Chlorophyll
Semi-quantitative microscopy
FlowCAM
1992 2014 2008 2013
Phytoplankton taxa: • Dominant, • Subdominant, or • Present
Total phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll/L)
Phytoplankton taxa: • Abundance (cells/mL) • Biomass (mm3/L)
Biovolume ≈ Biomass
Chaetoceros Alexandrium Misc. small dinoflagellate etc (up to 57 more)
Abundance
(cells/ml)
124 2 20 …
Biovolume
(mm3/L)
10.8 0.0048 0.0315 …
Quartermaster Harbor
North Central Basin
South Central Basin
Surface samples from:
• 3 sites
• 7 dates (April – July)
Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS):
Creates a map of dissimilarity in
taxonomic composition
Stress: 0.16
Stress: 0.16
More dissimilar
communities
More similar
communities
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"April 9" "May 7" "May 20" "June 4" "June 16" "July 8" "July 22"
Bio
volu
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Chaetoceros Thalassiosira
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"April 9" "May 7" "May 20" "June 4" "June 16" "July 8" "July 22"
Bio
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Chaetoceros Thalassiosira
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"April 9" "May 7" "May 20" "June 4" "June 16" "July 8" "July 22"
Bio
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Chaetoceros Thalassiosira
North Central Basin
May 20
Noctiluca
North Central Basin
May 20
?
ND
Total Extracted Chlorophyll
Total FlowCAM Biovolume (mm3/L)
ND
Biovolume vs. Chlorophyll
Acknowledgements
KCEL Aquatic Toxicology:
• Gabriela Hannach
• Lyndsey Sandwick
KCEL Field Science Unit:
• Bob Kruger
• Jim Devereaux
• Stephanie Hess
• Christopher Barnes
• Marc Patten
• Jean Power
Marine and Sediment Assessment:
• Kim Stark
• Wendy Eash-Loucks
Photo credit: Gabriela Hannach
• Stress: 0.16
• √√y transformed
• Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index
• Centered on mean of axes
• Rotated so variance maximized
on 1st axis
• Scaled so one unit change =
doubling of dissimilarity