Spring phytoplankton communities of the Labrador Sea (2005–2014): pigment signatures, photophysiology and elemental ratios

Fragoso, Glaucia M.; Poulton, Alex J.; Yashayaev, Igor M.; Head, Erica J. H.; Purdie, Duncan A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-1235-2017

Articles | Volume 14, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-1235-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-1235-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 5

Research article

|

14 Mar 2017

Research article |

| 14 Mar 2017

Spring phytoplankton communities of the Labrador Sea (2005–2014): pigment signatures, photophysiology and elemental ratios

Glaucia M. Fragoso, Alex J. Poulton, Igor M. Yashayaev, Erica J. H. Head, and Duncan A. Purdie

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Final revised paper (published on 14 Mar 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 22 Jul 2016)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'comments on bg-2016-29', Anonymous Referee #1, 22 Aug 2016
- AC1: 'Response to referee #1', Glaucia Moreira Fragoso, 10 Oct 2016
RC2: 'Reviewer's comments', S. W. Wright, 24 Aug 2016
- AC2: 'Response to referee #2 - Dr. Simon Wright', Glaucia Moreira Fragoso, 10 Oct 2016
RC3: 'Review n°3 on bg-2016-295', Anonymous Referee #3, 27 Aug 2016
- AC3: 'Response to referee #3', Glaucia Moreira Fragoso, 10 Oct 2016

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Oct 2016) by Koji Suzuki

AR by Glaucia Moreira Fragoso on behalf of the Authors (24 Nov 2016) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Dec 2016) by Koji Suzuki

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (26 Dec 2016)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

In general, the authors have improved the manuscript by incorporating the comments suggested by the reviewers. The new introduction and methodological sections and the use of the standardized abbreviations for pigments make the manuscript easier to read in its present form. The initial matrices used for the CHEMTAX analyses and the RMS are now presented. However I still have a few comments on the manuscript in its present form:

Abstract
Line 26, do the authors mean 70% of total chl a (TChla)?

Methods
Line 140, first time referring to chlorophyll a, add the abbreviation after chlorophyll a (chl a) and use the abbreviation through the rest of the manuscript. Please check through the manuscript for usage of Tchla or chl a (e.g. line 254, the abbreviation should be Tchla).
Similarly, when the authors refer to the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR, line 481), please first define the abbreviation then use it through the manuscript, not the other way around.

Line 143, add extracted “in the dark“ for 24 h-

Line 152, remove samples and change to chl a fluorescence of water samples was determined on board after…

Line 186, do the authors refer to the daily incident irradiance (integrated irradiance) averaged per month? Unclear.

Table 2
Chl c3: diatoms type 2 contain this pigment (see Higgins et al. 2011, Coupel et al. 2015).
TChl a row change the Chlide “alpha” to Chlide a.
Last row of the table, please change CHLA to Chl a.

Table 3
Why are chlorophytes (CHLORO-1) and haptophytes (HAPTO-6) in capital letters?

According to Higgins et al. 2011, dinoflagellates containing peridinin should be named type 1, please change Dinoflagellates to dino-1 in your matrices. The use of dinoflagellates and then dino-2 is confusing otherwise.

Why did you assume that the diatoms present in your study did not contain chl c3? I think you should re-consider this. At least for the communities that are located in the shelves where the authors found high concentration of fucoxanthin together with high chl c3 and diatoms dominated the community.
Seeing the variety of diatom species found in the previous study (lines 565-570), it seems reasonable to think that some of the chl c3 to the total chl a should be attributed to the presence of diatoms type 1 (containing chl c3) and not only to diatoms type-2.

Line 621, change Front with Font. If you cite this work you need to add the reference in the list.

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RR by S. W. Wright (05 Jan 2017)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (07 Jan 2017) by Koji Suzuki

AR by Glaucia Moreira Fragoso on behalf of the Authors (20 Jan 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (05 Feb 2017) by Koji Suzuki

AR by Glaucia Moreira Fragoso on behalf of the Authors (09 Feb 2017) Manuscript

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Short summary

This research describes a detailed analysis of current distributions of spring phytoplankton communities in the Labrador Sea based on 10 years of observations. Phytoplankton community composition varied mainly according to the contrasting hydrographical zones of the Labrador Sea. The taxonomic distinctions of these communities influenced the photosynthetic and biochemical signatures of near-surface waters, which may have a profound impact on the carbon cycle in high-latitude seas.