Potential overestimation in primary and new productions of phytoplankton from a short time incubation method

Abstract

A short (4–5 hour) incubation method for a 13C-15N dual isotope tracer technique has been widely applied for the measurements of daily primary and new productions of phytoplankton. However, there has been no research conducted to determine if there are any differences in the estimated daily productions between short incubation periods and 24 hour incubations. Based on hourly uptake rates estimated from a 4 hour incubation at a coastal site in the East/Japan Sea, the daily carbon and nitrogen uptake rates of total phytoplankton were approximately 60% overestimated compared to those derived from a 24 hour incubation. Especially for large phytoplankton, the daily carbon uptake rates based on the 4 hour incubation were greatly overestimated (> 200%). In contrast, the daily rates of small phytoplankton were not significantly different between the two different incubations. This is mainly because the daily carbon and nitrogen uptake rates of large phytoplankton were significantly correlated with light intensity. Consequently, the contributions of small phytoplankton were underestimated whereas large phytoplankton contributions were overestimated in daily carbon and nitrogen uptake rates based on a 4 hour incubation. Further investigations into these potential overestimations in daily carbon and nitrogen uptake rates of phytoplankton, especially for large size cells, will be needed to be carried out in order to obtain better estimations of annual primary and new productions.