Noctiluca blooms intensify when northwesterly winds complement northeasterlies in the northern Arabian Sea: Possible implications

Abstract

Wind systems are known as nutrient sources playing significant roles in the oceanic realm and global climate oscillations. This study explores, for the first time, the effect of winds on the winter blooms of the mixotrophic dinoflagellate, the green variant of Noctiluca scintillans (NSG) in the northern Arabian Sea. When the NSG abundance was lower (i.e., <∼10000 cells l−1), it was coupled to silicic acid (H4SiO4), on which diatoms (phytoplankton) in turn depended. At higher abundance (i.e., NSG>∼10000 cells l−1), H4SiO4 and H4SiO4:DIN (dissolved inorganic nitrogen) ratio fell. The NSG was then intensely green and chlorophyll-a richer, attributed to a change in the mode of NSG's nutrition from heterotrophy to autotrophy-dominance. The back-trajectory model revealed that the winds were mostly northeasterly (NE) initially (during February) and were north-westerly (NW) towards the end of winter (March). Separately for the NE and NW winds, the NSG abundance was 10655±18628 and 28896±46225 cells l−1, respectively. The H4SiO4:DIN ratio correspondingly reached <0.2 and ≥0.4. The NSG was modelled with high significance (p<0.001, N=33) versus the NE and NW wind speeds. Thus, while the NE winds deepened the mixed layer and caused nutrient enrichment and phytoplankton production, the NW winds facilitated the recovery of the H4SiO4:DIN ratio and economical use of H4SiO4 for phytoplankton production. It is hypothesized that this process is helped by iron input from NW desert winds during the latter part of winter when the NSG blooms intensify.