Abstract
AbstractPhtytoplankton group composition determined by microscopy was compared with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) derived from pigment signatures in surface water samples taken bi-weekly and monthly between October 2018 and September 2019 in the Golden Horn Estuary (Sea of Marmara). A total of 80 eukaryotic phytoplankton taxa belonging to eight algal classes were identified in surface water during the study period. Forty-three taxa (54%) were diatoms, 29 taxa (36%) were dinoflagellates and eight taxa (10%) were other phytoflagellates. The average contribution of diatoms to total phytoplankton abundance decreased considerably (41 to 25%), while the average contribution of dinoflagellates and other phytoflagellates increased markedly (59 to 75%) from the lower to the middle estuary. Chlorophyll-a and seven other group-specific pigments, including fucoxanthin, peridinin, chlorophyll-c1 + c2, alloxanthin, 19′-hexanoyloxyfucoxanthin, 19′-butanoyloxyfucoxanthin and divinyl chlorophyll-a were identified in the study area. The relative contribution of the major phytoplankton groups to chlorophyll-a was estimated on three different initial ratio matrices by CHEMTAX. The results obtained were compared with those from microscopic examination. It was concluded that the CHEMTAX method was not accurate enough to characterize the phytoplankton community in the Golden Horn Estuary ecosystem and microscopic analysis was essential to determine the major contributing species to chlorophyll-a.
Highlights
Phytoplankton is generally constituted of complex communities and their diversity and dynamics are highly variable
The validity of using pigment signatures detected by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to estimate phytoplankton group composition was tested for the Mediterranean Sea (Thyssen et al, 2011; Yücel, 2017) and Black Sea (Ediger et al, 2006; Eker-Develi et al, 2012; Agirbas et al, 2015, 2017)
The highest abundances in total phytoplankton were observed between April and September, as shown by microscopic analysis
Summary
Phytoplankton is generally constituted of complex communities and their diversity and dynamics are highly variable. Distribution of phytoplankton species provides crucial data for environmental monitoring studies. As these species can change in a very short time, regular investigation of phytoplankton composition requires substantial resources for sampling and skilled staff for microscopy (Hillebrand et al, 1999). An alternative or supplementary method for monitoring and identifying phytoplankton community structures is to determine their pigment signatures by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) (Wright & Jeffrey, 2006). This technique is faster and more reproducible than microscopy and independent of subjective consideration (Wänstrand & Snoeijs, 2006).
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