Impact of freshwater on a subarctic coastal ecosystem under seasonal sea ice (southeastern Hudson Bay, Canada) II. Production and export of microalgae

Abstract

In the under-ice plume of the Grande rivière de la Baleine (Great Whale River) and offshore waters of southeastern Hudson Bay (Canada), several environmental factors influence the distribution, growth, taxonomic composition and sedimentation of algae found in the sea ice, at the ice-water interface and in the underlying water column. During the spring and early summer, these factors include: salinity of bottom ice, water turbidity, nutrients and vertical stability of the water column. In the present study, relationships between three predictor variables (water salinity, river runoff and seasonal air temperature index) and biological variables are used to assess the impact of freshwater on production and export of microalgae. Relationships are derived from existing data, which were collected between 1978 and 1990. Correlations with water salinity are positive for some variables (salinity of bottom ice, phosphate, ammonium, Σ:Si, and algae in bottom ice and at the interface) and negative for others (coefficient of light attenuation, silicate, ΣN:P, ΣSi:P and water column phytoplankton). Using together salinity and the seasonal index leads to improved proportions of explained variance for nitrate, ammonium, ΣN:P and phytoplankton. The amount of sedimenting algae is positively correlated with runoff, and chemical composition (C/N) of the sedimenting material is negatively correlated with salinity. The empirical relationships are applied to the results of a model of river plume dynamics, for three runoff conditions. Seasonally averaged total Chl. a concentrations, derived from the model, are higher for maximum river runoff than for mean or minimum conditions. This is because, in the studied environment, areal concentrations of phytoplankton are higher than those of ice algae, especially under condition of maximum runoff.