Deep maxima of phytoplankton biomass, primary production  and bacterial production in the Mediterranean Sea

Marañón, Emilio; Van Wambeke, France; Uitz, Julia; Boss, Emmanuel S.; Dimier, Céline; Dinasquet, Julie; Engel, Anja; Haëntjens, Nils; Pérez-Lorenzo, María; Taillandier, Vincent; Zäncker, Birthe

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1749-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1749-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Atmospheric deposition in the low-nutrient-low-chlorophyll...

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1749-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 5

Research article

|

15 Mar 2021

Research article |

| 15 Mar 2021

Deep maxima of phytoplankton biomass, primary production and bacterial production in the Mediterranean Sea

Emilio Marañón, France Van Wambeke, Julia Uitz, Emmanuel S. Boss, Céline Dimier, Julie Dinasquet, Anja Engel, Nils Haëntjens, María Pérez-Lorenzo, Vincent Taillandier, and Birthe Zäncker

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-1749-2021-supplement

Data sets

PEACETIME cruise, RV Pourquoi pas? C. Guieu and K. Desboeufs https://doi.org/10.17600/17000300

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Short summary

The concentration of chlorophyll is commonly used as an indicator of the abundance of photosynthetic plankton (phytoplankton) in lakes and oceans. Our study investigates why a deep chlorophyll maximum, located near the bottom of the upper, illuminated layer develops in the Mediterranean Sea. We find that the acclimation of cells to low light is the main mechanism involved and that this deep maximum represents also a maximum in the biomass and carbon fixation activity of phytoplankton.