Variations of net primary productivity and phytoplankton community composition in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean as estimated from ocean color remote sensing data

Abstract

Phytoplankton population dynamics play an important role in biogeochemical cycles in the Southern Ocean during austral summer. Recent environmental changes such as a rise in sea surface temperature (SST) are likely to impact on net primary productivity (NPP) and phytoplankton community composition. However, their spatiotemporal relationships are still unclear in the Southern Ocean. Here we assessed the relationships between NPP, dominant phytoplankton groups, and SST in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean over the past decade (1997-2007) using satellite remote sensing data. As a result, we found a statistically significant reduction in NPP in the polar frontal zone over the past decade during austral summer. Moreover, the decrease in NPP positively correlated with the dominance of diatoms (Kendall's rank correlation τ= 0.60) estimated by a phytoplankton community composition model, but not correlated with SST. In the seasonal ice zone, NPP correlated with not only the dominance of diatoms positively (τ= 0.56), but also the dominance of haptophytes (τ=-'0.54) and SST (τ=-'0.54) negatively. Our results suggested that summer NPP values were strongly affected by the phytoplankton community composition in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean. ©2012 Author(s).