Phytoplankton blooms and nitrogen productivity in San Francisco Bay

Abstract

San Francisco Bay has been considered an HNLC or HNLG (high nutrient low chlorophyll or low growth) region with nonlimiting concentrations of inorganic nutrients yet low standing stocks of phytoplankton. Most of the studies leading to this conclusion come from the South Bay and little is known about nutrient processes and phytoplankton productivity in the northern and central parts of the estuary. Data collected over 3 yr (1999–2003) in Suisun, San Pablo, and Central Bays describe the availability of dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN), silicate, and phosphate and the seasonal variability in phytoplankton abundance. Rate measurements of fractionated nitrogen productivity provide the relative contributions of different forms of DIN (ammonium and nitrate) and different sized phytoplankton to the development of seasonal phytoplankton blooms. Regional differences in bloom dynamics are observed with Suisun Bay, the least saline, highest nutrient, most turbid region having less phytoplankton biomass and productivity than San Pablo and Central Bays, except in the abnormally wet spring of 2000. Spring blooms in San Francisco Bay are driven primarily by high rates of nitrate uptake by larger phytoplankton cells following a period of increased ammonium uptake that depletes the ambient ammonium. The smaller occasional fall blooms are apparently flueled mostly by ammonium uptake by small sized phytoplankton. The data suggest that the HNLC condition in the northern and central parts of San Francisco Bay is due primarily to light availability modulated by the interaction between ammonium and nitrate, and the relative amounts of the two forms of the DIN pool available to the phytoplankton.